Airsoft Action - January 2017

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AIRSOFT ACTION

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G&G RK74T ASG ARMALITE M15 NUPROL DELTA RANGE KING ARMS BLACK RAIN

EVENTS

GRUNTZ BLUE FOX II NABV DUTCH OPEN IPSC BRITISH MASTERS

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D E B AT E

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FA M O U S R A I D S

COMBAT SOUTH

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AIRSOFT SKILLS

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LOADED OR UNLOADED FOOTWEAR CHOICES

WARRIORS

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G I V E I T TO A G E E K

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G&G RK74T ASG ARMALITE M15 NUPROL DELTA RANGE KING ARMS BLACK RAIN

EVENTS

GRUNTZ BLUE FOX II NABV DUTCH OPEN IPSC BRITISH MASTERS

ARMOURY: NUPROL DELTA RANGE

INTERNATIONAL

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FA M O U S R A I D S

INSIDE AIRSOFT

LOADED OR UNLOADED FOOTWEAR CHOICES

COMBAT SOUTH

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AIRSOFT SKILLS

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G I V E I T TO A G E E K

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JAN 2017

D E B AT E

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COOL UNDER FIRE

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ARMOURY: BLACK RAIN

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Editor: Nigel Streeter Assistant Editor: Gareth “Gadge” Harvey Graphic Design: Havoc Design Ad Design: Havoc Design Publisher: Nigel Streeter

UK 13-issue subscription rate: £46.50 UK 6-issue subscription rate: £24.00 For overseas prices email: subs@airsoft-action.co.uk

EVENT: BLUE FOX II

Distribution: Distributed to the newstrade by Comag Magazine Marketing, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QE T: 01895 433 800 Copyright © Calibre Publishing Limited 2016. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express permission of the publisher in writing. The opinion of the writers do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. The editor reserves the right to edit submissions prior to print.

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AIRSOFT SKILLS: BUG OUT BAGS

FEATURE: MILITARY MUSEUM – KIEV

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Drop us a line and let us know. Either email the editor (nige@airsoft-action.co.uk), write to us at the Calibre Publishing address above, or talk to us on Twitter or Facebook.

CONTENTS JANUARY MARCH 2017 2014

CONTENTS JANUARY 2017 6 NEWS 10 ROGUE’S GALLERY Cool photos of Airsoft Action readers.

11 THE ADVENTURES OF MAG Airsoft Action’s exclusive cartoon.

45 AIRSOFT ACTION DEBATE: HPA It’s debate time again and this month Gadge asks… “How do you feel about High Pressure Air?”

12 ARMOURY: NUPROL DELTA RANGE OVERVIEW After biting his tongue for many months, Jerry Noone brings us his overview of the stunning new DELTA range of AEGs from NUPROL.

49 LOADED OR UNLOADED: FOOTWEAR CHOICES Choosing the wrong boots can make all the difference to having a superb day on site, or going home early.

Jerry Noone looks at making the right choice of footwear, irrelevant of your budget.

16 ARMOURY: KING ARMS BLACK RAIN ORDNANCE King Arms have been a bit quiet of late but now they are back with a fully licensed M4, as Scott Allan explains…

54 EVENT: GUNMAN AIRSOFT GRUNTZ Gadge and Mrs. Gadge get caught between replicants and Colonial Marines as they report from Gunman Airsoft’s latest Larpsoft event.

20 ARMOURY: ASG ARMALITE M15 Jerry Noone takes a look at two new models from ActionSportGames; a Proline and a Sportline “AR” and comes away very favourably impressed by what he sees!

58 ACTION AIR: IPSC BRITISH MASTERS Dawn Williams, from South West Practical Shooters (SWPS), reports from the Action Air IPSC British Masters Level 3 Competition hosted at Bravo One on 28th-30th October 2016.

24 ACTION AIR: NABV DUTCH OPEN Accompanied by Danny Yau from RedWolf Airsoft, Nige headed off to Holland to report from the Dutch Action Air Open Championship.

30 EVENT: BLUE FOX II Bill Thomas and Kelly Hardwick attend “Operation Blue Fox II”, run by HTIS at the Fire Service College, Moretonin-Marsh and report on what turned out to be a very challenging game!

34 INSIDE AIRSOFT: COMBAT SOUTH RE-VISITED Les Lee re-visits Combat South to catch up with events and pay his respects following the death of a much-loved and well-respected figure in the airsoft community.

38 INTERNATIONAL AIRSOFT: FALLOUT IN FRANCE Airsoft Action’s French Contributor, Diane Montagnier, attends a threeday operation based on the video game Fallout, mixing airsoft gamers with live action role-play.

42 GITAG: AIRSOFT NATION Jerry Noone was lucky enough to be involved at the very start of the new community online resource, AIRSOFT NATION.

62 ARMOURY: G&G RK47T The long-awaited RK74 models from G&G are finally hitting the UK and Jerry Noone gets hands on one of the very first to arrive in the country – but has the wait has been worth it?

66 SITE: COOL UNDER FIRE Les Lee likes nothing more than a big bang, so when he was invited to an event at Cool Under Fire entitled “Pyromania”, how could he resist!

70 TECH TALK: RATE OF FIRE Frenchie examines one of the more contentious technical issues in airsoft; Rate of Fire.

75 INTERNATIONAL: HONG KONG Continuing with his roaming remit to bring news of airsoft around the globe, this month Bill Thomas takes us to the cultural home of our game and finds out a little more about the state of play in Hong Kong for the ex-pat community!

79 WARRIORS: FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION Gareth “Gadge” Harvey returns to Europe in the 1980s for this issue, as he looks inside the feared and respected French Foreign Legion.

83 FEATURE: POLITICS IN AIRSOFT Frenchie dons his wig and cape (no, he’s not dressing up as Batman) to venture into the world of airsoft politics. Will we ever see him again…?

87 BOOK REVIEW: MODERN SNIPERS The interest in snipers never seems to diminish and Gadge finds a book that applies to airsoft sniping, just as much as the real world role.

88 SURVIVAL: FIRE DRAGON COOKER Paul Yelland puts the British Army’s replacement for the venerable hexamine cooker through its paces.

90 FAMOUS RAIDS: OPERATION SOURCE Although probably not easily adapted to airsoft, Billy writes about one of the most famous raids of WW2 – just because it was so damn audacious!

94 AIRSOFT SKILLS: BUG OUT BAGS When the living dead come calling, you need to have everything ready to get out of Dodge in a hurry – but what should you pack? Calibre Shooting’s Andy Nightingale gives us a run-down on his apocalyptic bug out bag.

97 FEATURE: MILITARY MUSEUM – KIEV Although he used to live there, it was only recently that Nige got to visit this excellent museum in Kiev.

101 SITE DIRECTORY & PRACTICAL PISTOL CLUBS Looking for somewhere to play, or your local Airsoft Practical Pistol Club?

Then we may have the answer, with over four pages of sites and clubs through the UK. 106 DEALER LISTING: AIRSOFT ACTION’S ADVERTISER INDEX Find who you are looking for in our listing of all the adverts that appear in this issue.

S W E N T F O S AIR FIRESUPPORT JANUARY GIVEAWAY

Win a TM Next Gen DEVGRU Recoil AEG worth over £700 in Firesupport’s January Giveaway!

The Fire Support January Giveaway is back and bigger than ever! This year with a prize to give away every single day in January - that’s 31 individual prizes up for grabs! What better way to start the year?

All orders made throughout the month qualify for the end-of-month draw where the lucky winner can walk away with a TM Next Gen DEVGRU Recoil AEG worth over £700!!

To be in with a chance of winning, just place an internet order of any value via the Firesupport website (www.fire-support.co.uk) and you’ll be entered into that day’s random draw. The winner selected will have the prize added to their order – it could not be more simple but that’s not all…

Daily prizes include: TM DEVGRU AEG, TM KSG Shotgun, ICS APE AEG, CA M249, CA SAR Offizier M41 FS AEG, ICS Captain, LCT M4 7” RIS AEG, TM G17 GBB pistol and many, many more!

Tribute to Mark Rasmussen

TAK FOR ALT BROR

Age comes with the responsibility of having to say “hi” but in some cases also “goodbye”, and this month it was very sadly time to say farewell to a fine young man who had only just recently joined the airsoft community in the UK. Mark “Airsoft Denmark” Rasmussen passed way in November at the age of just 22 years old, and it has shocked many of us to the core. Mark had left his native Denmark and travelled to the UK to pursue his dream of becoming a driving force in airsoft, and through his blog and social media feeds he was fast attaining that goal.

As an ambassador for ActionSportGames, and for many other gear companies, Mark was exemplary and showed a level of professionalism that many should aspire to. Not only was he the consummate professional but he also had the gift of engagement; you just could not speak to Mark without being taken with his massive sense of fun and his enthusiasm!

Mark showed us how airsoft could be; he had honour, integrity and brought a shedload of laughs to any situation. Mark and I had plans to collaborate on a number of projects, and now that’s just leaves in the wind that will never land.

Anyone that has one of his red patches is amongst a small group of very special people. You could not buy one of these, they were simply given with affection to those Mark valued. We will all wear this patch proudly in remembrance of a young man who left us way too soon, upholding his principles of honesty, fair play, enthusiasm and fun.

Our condolences go out to his partner and his family; I am truly, deeply saddened at his passing, and the world of airsoft will be a lesser place without him.

Hvil i fred ven.

Bill Thomas

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January 2017

For more info, check out the Firesupport ad on pages 28 & 29.

S W E N T F O AIRS

GOOD NEWS AT LAST!

Airsoft Action has received the following Press Release from Matt Furey-King at UKAPU and we believe it represents a major step forwards in our efforts to secure a future for airsoft in the UK. There are still issue to be resolved but, on the face of it, we are closer to being “officially” recognised than ever before.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: (03/12/16) Matt Furey-King UK Airsoft Players Union (UKAPU) Huge UK Airsoft Law News UKAPU and UKARA bring about positive changes to Policing and Crime Bill We finally are able to tell you some good news about the draft UK law affecting airsoft.

At the start of the year the government released the Policing and Crime Bill (PCB), which included a clause to set the lethal threshold at 1 Joule of muzzle energy. This would mean that a barrelled device would be essentially regarded as an air gun if it had muzzle energy of over 1J. In 2015 the law commission suggested (based on input from UKARA and UKAPU) that airsoft replicas should be allowed an exemption from the 1J lethal threshold, as 1J would be far too low for our needs. The government accepted this and wrote it into the PCB. The first draft of the airsoft exemption was not that great. 8mm airsoft would not count and, arguably no airsoft device would have been able to use the proposed exemption because they are capable of firing non plastic BBs. The airsoft associations were invited to discuss the exemption with the Home Office firearms department in March, and the results of that meeting, plus 8 months of lobbying behind the scenes, have finally paid off.

Trying to get exemption through at all was a feat. Though the government supported the exemption it came under attack from a Labour MP and then later from a Conservative Lord. The anti-gun groups and even part of the gun lobby objected to it.

But through a combined effort from UKARA and UKAPU we’ve managed to not only get the exemption for airsoft through, but also convince the government to make some small changes to it, which have just been submitted in the form of amendments (these are yet to be voted on at time of writing but should be integrated during the Lords report stage). When the Bill is enacted in early 2017 we’ll have clear power limits for airsoft and a better definition of what an airsoft gun is. Not only will those limits reflect the realistic power output of airsoft replicas, but they will also not interfere with the normal power limits that we use for gaming. So instead of being limited to 1J, we’ll be able to play on mostly as normal.

The lion’s share of the Home Office lobbying work was done by Frank, John and Adrian at UKARA. Without some shrewd tactics and persistent lobbying from them we’d never have got the amendment on the table.

UKAPU spent a lot of time rallying airsofters and lobbying MPs without them there may have been more objections from MPs and Lords. Though we’ve not been able to talk about it till now, it’s taken a constant barrage of letters, calls and meetings throughout 2016 to get to where we are.

The guys from UKARA also commissioned expensive laboratory testing of the penetrative properties of 8mm BBs, so we could ask the Home Office to extend the exemption to 8mm airsoft replicas as well as 6mm. UKARA have spent close to £10000 fighting for the airsoft industry.

The Home Office also deserve thanks. Some people imagine they are anti-airsoft, but in reality the civil servants have invited the airsoft associations to comment on the bill and have taken those comments on board even though this created more work. They have done their utmost to ensure that the airsoft game and industry isn’t compromised by the new law. Government Ministers such as Mike Penning MP have spoken in defence of our right to play airsoft and supported us throughout.

The elephant in the room is, still, fully automatic replicas over 1.3J. If it is capable of more than 1.3J then your replica may be regarded as a section 5 firearm. This could mean that GBB and HPA replicas are

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January 2017

prohibited weapons, and it could mean you might land a 5 year prison sentence for importing an AEG which is more powerful than advertised.

We also need to ensure that airsoft replicas aren’t regarded as ‘readily convertible’ to firearms, as they can all be converted to exceed the new thresholds. UKARA and UKAPU have been raising this issue with the government for the last year, and it seems they have now taken it on board. We are due to see them early next year to discuss a solution, separate to the PCB. For your convenience the amended clause 111 is below.

The status quo has been more or less maintained but only through a mammoth effort behind the scenes. Please spread the word, people need to understand that airsoft needs constant protection, and the only way we’ve achieved this win is by working together under the umbrella of airsoft associations.

Matt Furey-King Chair UKAPU and Frank Bothamley Chair UKARA Policing and Crime Bill- http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/ policingandcrime.html Latest amendments- http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/ lbill/2016-2017/0072/17072(e).pdf Amended clause 111 of the Policing and Crime Bill 2015-16 (5) After section 57 insert— “57A Exception for airsoft guns (1) An “airsoft gun” is not to be regarded as a firearm for the purposes of this Act. (2) An “airsoft gun” is a barrelled weapon of any description which— (a) Is designed to discharge only a small plastic missile (whether or not it is also capable of discharging any other kind of missile), and (b) is not capable of discharging a missile (of any kind) with kinetic energy at the muzzle of the weapon that exceeds the permitted level.

(3) “Small plastic missile” means a missile that— (a) is made wholly or partly from plastics, and (aa) is spherical, and (b) does not exceed 8 millimetres in diameter.

(4) The permitted kinetic energy level is— (a) in the case of a weapon “is capable of discharging two or more missiles without repeated pressure on the trigger, 1.3 joules; (b) in any other case, 2.5 joules.”

About UKAPU: UKAPU is an unincorporated non-profit association formed by a dedicated group of Airsoft skirmishers to help protect and strengthen our hobby. By providing a united and official organisation that represents players, we can far more effectively engage in discussion with the government, other organisations, and the press when skirmishing comes under threat.

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January 2017

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Ed Crooks at Ground Zero - 13th Nov 2016

THE ADVENTURES OF MAG

CARTOON

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Armoury RANGE OVERVIEW

NUPROL DELTA AEG AFTER BITING HIS TONGUE FOR MANY MONTHS, JERRY NOONE BRINGS US HIS OVERVIEW OF THE STUNNING NEW DELTA RANGE OF AEGS FROM NUPROL. MANY MONTHS AGO, when I was paying one of my regular visits to the NUPROL HQ in the south of England, my old mate Ross (Tucker) quite literally rocked me back on my heels when he announced that NUPROL would be launching their own DELTA AEGs - and not just one model but an entire range. He did have a couple of pre-production samples to show me and what I got my hands on at that stage was a very tasty looking CQB model and a longer “KeyMod” equipped field model. At this point in time I was sworn to secrecy.

Now I’m very privileged in many ways, as I do really get to see what goes on behind the scenes and as Ross and I are friends outside of work as well as in, I knew for a fact that he was clocking up the air miles travelling back and forth to factories in the Far East. Many of you may not know but Ross started out as a player and gun tech, so he knows darn well what needs to go into an AEG to make it sing; if he and the team at NUPROL were going to put their reputations behind a line of models, they had to be the very best that they could produce - and I’ll tell you right now that they put their heart and soul into every single step of creating the DELTAs!

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January 2017

Even as pre-production samples they both felt surprisingly, yet reassuringly sturdy and solid but nothing prepared me for what I would see when I visited him again late last month.

You’re probably going to have been living under a rock if you’ve not by now seen the new models online and thanks to Trent, “The Man in the Red Van” and Field Sales Executive for NUPROL, many of you will have had “hands on” too. I’ve been to a few places where Trent has been showing the new DELTA AEG line off and the reception by players that I’ve witnessed has been massively positive.

Ross had asked me in advance if I could spend a good few hours with him when the production models arrived and so it was with some excitement that I set off to spend the day with him. Our intent was to strip some of the DELTAs back to component parts so that I could really see what made them tick. Over the course of the next couple of months the whole Airsoft Action review squad are going to get “in depth” with the individual models but for those of you who haven’t yet seen the details yet, let me walk you through the range.

With a retail price of just £130, the DELTA M4 Pioneer Defender, in either back or tan, can in no way be described as the “entry level model” of the range, as the only difference internally is that this AEG comes with an aluminium inner barrel rather than the “QPQ” steel (more on this later) versions that come in the other variants. Yes, it has a reinforced nylon fibre body and rail, rather than a metal body (the buffer tube and outer barrel ARE metal) but… 130 quid! I cannot for the life of me think why someone would not buy this model. First AEG? …130 quid. Site Rental AEG? …130 quid! Backup AEG or one to hand off to a mate in an emergency? …130 bleedin’ quid!!!

Armoury RANGE OVERVIEW

Features of the DELTA M4 Pioneer Defender are: 6.03MM ALUMINIUM TIGHTBORE BARREL QD SPRING CHANGE GEARBOX FULL STEEL TOOTHED PISTON AND GEARS REINFORCED V2 METAL GEAR BOX DESIGN METAL REINFORCED SELECTOR PLATE METAL & REINFORCED NYLON FIBRE CONSTRUCTION SAFE - SEMI - AUTO FIRING MODES LIPO BATTERY READY Next on the list come two absolutely first rate “field” AEGs, both priced at £215 and both available again in black and tan.

The first of these is an absolute classic, in the guise of the DELTA M4 SOPMOD. If you’re looking for a really solid, full metal M4 to base a build on, then the SOPMOD is exactly what you need. It comes with the standard “A” front sight, with the rear being incorporated into the removable carry handle and once removed, a flat-top, railed upper receiver is revealed, perfect for mounting an optic. The front features a rail system, again full metal. It’s good to go from the box but I can see this model festooned with all the “SF” accessories we love so much!

Features of the DELTA M4 SOPMOD are: • 6.03MM STEEL TIGHTBORE BARREL • QD SPRING CHANGE GEARBOX • FULL STEEL TOOTHED PISTON AND GEARS • REINFORCED V2 METAL GEAR BOX DESIGN • METAL REINFORCED SELECTOR PLATE • CNC FINISHED RECEIVER WITH QPQ FINISH • SAFE - SEMI - AUTO FIRING MODES • LIPO BATTERY READY • VERTICAL GRIP INCLUDED • METAL SLING PLATE INCLUDED • • • • • • • •

Next comes what is my personal favourite of the new models, the DELTA M4 Recon Alpha, which features a 480mm tightbore “QPQ” steel inner barrel and an absolutely stunning 310mm “KeyMod” rail system as standard. Ergonomically this is a superb AEG and is right up to the minute in terms of style and design and obviously with great internals and an inner barrel this long, the Recon Alpha is going to be no slouch!

This model also comes with a removable unique front and rear

sight, so again it’s good to go from the box.

Features of the DELTA M4 Recon Alpha are: • 6.03MM STEEL TIGHTBORE BARREL • QD SPRING CHANGE GEARBOX • FULL STEEL TOOTHED PISTON AND GEARS • REINFORCED V2 METAL GEAR BOX DESIGN • METAL REINFORCED SELECTOR PLATE • CNC FINISHED RECEIVER WITH QPQ FINISH • SAFE - SEMI - AUTO FIRING MODES • LIPO BATTERY READY • THREE KEYMOD RAIL SECTIONS INCLUDED • METAL SLING PLATE INCLUDED For the dedicated CQB players out there, fear not, NUPROL have you covered with the DELTA M4 Freedom Fighter! This is a really, really cool bit of kit, which is available in black or tan for £250. Again fully railed and of all metal construction, the Freedom Fighter has a very unique look with a short inner and outer barrel topped off by NUPROL’s own sound amp and this thing really cracks! The Freedom Fighter also comes with a sliding skeleton stock and an innovative rear battery compartment which is designed to accommodate batteries from the NUPROL range. As with the DELTA M4 Recon Alpha, the Freedom Fighter comes with removable fronts and rear www.airsoft-action.online

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Armoury RANGE OVERVIEW

sights making it the perfect, ready to use CQB tool.

Features of the DELTA M4 Freedom Fighter are: • 6.03MM STEEL TIGHTBORE BARREL • QD SPRING CHANGE GEARBOX • FULL STEEL TOOTHED PISTON AND GEARS • REINFORCED V2 METAL GEAR BOX DESIGN • METAL REINFORCED SELECTOR PLATE • CNC FINISHED RECEIVER WITH QPQ FINISH • SAFE - SEMI - AUTO FIRING MODES • LIPO BATTERY READY • VERTICAL GRIP INCLUDED • METAL SLING PLATE INCLUDED Now if you REALLY fancy something a bit different (and this vies with the DELTA M4 Recon Alpha for my affections), the DELTA AK21 fits the bill perfectly. With an “AR” style lower and a monolithic “AK” style upper, the “ARAK” really is one of a kind! This variant mimics the real world trend of producing AK-style rifles that make use of STANAG 5.56mm magazines or similar and I have to say that NUPROL have pulled their take on this off with gusto. With masses of rail-space and offset front and rear sights, this really is a stunner visually and is just crying out for a magnified optic. At £280 this is bang on the money too!

Features of the DELTA AK21 are: 6.03MM STEEL TIGHTBORE BARREL • QD SPRING CHANGE GEARBOX • FULL STEEL TOOTHED PISTON AND GEARS • REINFORCED V2 METAL GEAR BOX DESIGN • METAL REINFORCED SELECTOR PLATE • CNC FINISHED RECEIVER WITH QPQ FINISH • SAFE - SEMI - AUTO FIRING MODES • LIPO BATTERY READY • VERTICAL GRIP INCLUDED

“NOW IF YOU REALLY FANCY SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT (AND THIS VIES WITH THE DELTA M4 RECON ALPHA FOR MY AFFECTIONS), THE DELTA AK21 FITS THE BILL PERFECTLY. WITH AN “AR” STYLE LOWER AND A MONOLITHIC “AK” STYLE UPPER, THE “ARAK” REALLY IS ONE OF A KIND!”

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January 2017

ALL READY TO GO!

So there you have it and what a line-up it is! There really is something for everyone to look at and with such keen pricing there are lots of options to play with. All the uppers and lowers are compatible so if you wish you could happily make up some interesting combinations!

Internally all the models make use of high-quality NUPROL parts; they already have a name for their upgrade parts so why would they not use the best they can in the new AEGs? Short M100 springs are used throughout to give the AEGs some real “pop” and keep them happily UK compliant too. Ross has specifically chosen the plastic hop unit and rubber to give the most versatility and in fact this attention to details has gone on everywhere.

THE SCIENCE BIT

I said I would return to the “QPQ” process as, to the best of my knowledge this is the first time it’s been used in relation to airsoft replicas. Salt bath nitriding, or “Quench-Polish-Quench” (QPQ), is particularly important when it comes to metal parts which operate for extended periods in highly corrosive environments, or are subject to high levels of friction. QPQ is based on a sequence of process events that occur directly following a nitrocarburising cycle. It begins with a cycle of nitrocarburising (a variation of the nitriding process), a salt bath quench, which produces a layer of epsilon iron nitride.

The next step is a mechanical polish of the nitride layer, thus restoring the original surface finish. This may be accomplished by vibratory polishing, lapping, centerless polishing, or by other similar means. Finally, to optimise the corrosion resistance, the component is then re-immersed in the KQ5OO salt quench bath for 20-30 minutes, rinsed and oil dipped. The overall process gives the part a cosmetically appealing finish and extremely high levels of durability; to say that NUPROL have done their homework here is just a massive understatement!

I’ve come away from my first proper look at the NUPROL DELTA Series feeling massively impressed and I can’t help also feeling insanely proud of what my friends, a great British company, have achieved here. I’m going to stick my neck out and say I believe that they’ve created a superb new range that will make a lot of airsofters very happy indeed. They look great, feel great and thus far I can tell you that out of the box they perform pretty darn well too; I took a DELTA M4 Recon Alpha out to the range over the weekend and it ran like a train. I also tried some of the new N-Mags (HiCap, Flash and adjustable Mid/Lo) which are spot on and I’ll report back on these at a later date.

Each DELTA comes with a metal STANAG-style HiCap magazine, spare steel body pins and a model specific instruction manual; no “chinglish” or pictures of the wrong models here folks! You can’t ask for much more than what’s on offer here and I truly believe that once again NUPROL will have a storming success on their hands; all power to them!

For more information on the entire DELTA AEG range and for stockist details, please do pay a visit to www.nuprol.com

PIONEER DEFENDER

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DOMINATE THE FIELD

Armoury KING ARMS BLACK RAIN ORDNANCE M4

LONG MAY IT RAIN KING ARMS HAVE BEEN A BIT QUIET OF LATE BUT NOW THEY ARE BACK WITH A FULLY LICENSED M4, AS SCOTT ALLAN EXPLAINS…

KING ARMS HAVE LAUNCHED ONE of the sharpest looking ARs they have ever made and this time it is fully licensed by Black Rain Ordnance in the US. I’ve had a few experiences with King Arms rifles over the years, some good and some bad, so I had my fingers crossed that the BRO was going to shoot as good as it looked.

I first saw the BRO at the IWA show in Germany in March 2016 and was instantly drawn to it. I had figured it was some type of self-branded AR platform at first, reasoning that no company would make something so outlandish with biohazard signs and funky script on the rail and bodywork. Turns out I was very wrong and I am happy about that! Chatting with Sarah from King Arms about the rifles I was easily swayed that I needed to try one of these out as quickly as possible.

KING ARMS

King Arms are a little bit unique, in that they started out in Hong Kong in 2004. Apparently due to operating costs and the “attack of the clone” market coming out of China, they relocated to Taiwan in 2015. As far as I know no

manufacturer has ever moved country in such a way and that is pretty interesting about the philosophy of the company I think. They’ve made many rifles over the years, like so many manufacturers. They make a brilliant Thompson, a number of AKs and of course M4s too. They also make more modern SIGs in the form of the 556. I had one years ago and sadly had nothing nice to say about it. This was many years ago and it may have just been a Friday afternoon lemon but it always gave me a little uneasiness about any of their rifles for the future.

What King Arms promised me was when you take it out of the box is that you are staring at a high quality product. But knowing that inside it is very standard is, in all honesty, a little bit of a let down. It all sounds on a similar par with G&P… a vanilla gearbox, no sprinkles and no raspberry sauce. Although, for me, that is a plus as I prefer mechanical over electronic anyway, especially as Airsoft is an all-weather sport and the electronics are rarely protected adequately from our somewhat moist conditions.

A LITTLE ABOUT THE REAL VERSION

The Black Rain Ordnance rifle family is fairly diverse and, in some ways, surprising. Their base rifle is only $899, that’s cheaper than almost every other similar company’s rifle. Then the higher end specifications take you to the $2,500 region and includes things like a Magpul PRS stock that retails for $200odd dollars. Finally, the 5.56mm (or .223) pewing rifle comes in two lengths, full sized 14.5” and SBR 12”. This is pretty consistent with the common lengths of all manufacturers these days. If that wasn’t enough variation for you, then there is a 7.62mm and a 5.56mm version too. I can’t talk about reliability or accuracy on these, having not tested them personally (yet) but I believe they are all round solid products. I will be sure to swing by their stand at Shot Show 2017!

BACK TO THE KING ARMS VERSION

I had already seen the rifle at the IWA so I had a good idea of what the look and feel was like (even though there may have been a few Steins consumed late the night before). Yet when I had it in my hands months later, I could not help but be impressed all over again. The matt black finish looked sharp, very good, almost Krytac good. The design and the lines were all nice and that front rail, oh how I love that front rail! All AR manufacturers are guilty of producing dull and unexciting front rails and why shouldn’t they be, it is a tool after all. Functional is nice but nice can also be functional. Much like the old adage 16

January 2017

Armoury KING ARMS BLACK RAIN ORDNANCE M4

for designing aircraft, if it looks good it’ll fly good - and they were engineers! So I have now decreed that all front rails must be pleasing to the eye as well as functional.

SO WHAT ABOUT PERFORMANCE?

King Arms can make a good-performing rifle, I’ve seen them with my own eyes; my 556 just wasn’t one of them. Despite the barrel being standard and having a standard Version 2 style M4 hop up, the range and performance were good, maybe could’ve been a little bit better but certainly very acceptable.

Sporting one of the neatest MOSFETs I’ve ever seen in the rear receiver the trigger is pretty snappy and the interchangeable grips on the pistol grip ensures a comfortable and steady fit into your hand. The thinning of the front rail at the mid-point means that your hand doesn’t have to grip into uncomfortable 20mm rail but onto a smoothed tubed section that allows ease of function without catching gloves or skin.

From what I can tell with the BRO, is that all your money is sitting on the outside. That isn’t a terrible thing given that the out of the box performance certainly isn’t bad, the internals are just a little behind what you would expect from a G&G-type rifle but on par with the likes of a G&P. Certainly the licensed part makes up for any shortcomings on the internals for me personally. The quick change spring is one of the slightly better designs but you still have to drop the stock tube off, which is an improvement over having to remove the gearbox from the lower receiver like many other “quick change” springs.

Like many players out there, I look at my upgrade options on any rifle I buy and this is just gagging to have to the some kind of electronic trigger fitted and a hop modification. With plenty of stock space you won’t be short on battery life either and should fit a 1450mah LiPo in there easily. Tight bore barrels are always worth a look at to, especially the Laylax 6.03mm or Madbull 6.03mm which are good value and performers and if you have more money to splash, have a look for a Prometheus 6.03mm. The gearbox itself is pretty sound and you shouldn’t

“I HAD FIGURED IT WAS SOME TYPE OF SELF-BRANDED AR PLATFORM AT FIRST, REASONING THAT NO COMPANY WOULD MAKE SOMETHING SO OUTLANDISH WITH BIOHAZARD SIGNS AND FUNKY SCRIPT ON THE RAIL AND BODYWORK. TURNS OUT I WAS VERY WRONG AND I AM HAPPY ABOUT THAT!”

www.airsoft-action.online

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Armoury KING ARMS BLACK RAIN ORDNANCE M4

features Weight 3.2kg 330 Feet Per Second Length 910-990mm really have to change anything there, unless you are going for a dedicated high speed set up maybe with some 13:1 gears but you’d need to watch your piston in this case. As always seek out professional help before wrecking your new expensive Airsoft gear!

It is a little bit heavy, mostly down to the front rail and the outer barrel but as it’s an M4 it is very easy to use and even with the longer-feeling 15” barrel it is equally well-suited to indoors and outdoors without getting caught up in everything.

Personally I would have some form of front grip fitted to help my aiming out, alas there is no MLOK sections for the bottom unlike the real steel – Scott is a sad panda! The iron sights are fairly decent and lock into position positively. The adjustable stock is affirming and there is little wobble, which is encouraging. I do personally like an 11.1v Lipo battery for a sharp trigger and a frightening rate of fire. It is not that I want to hose endlessly but I do always like the quick 3-4 round bursts to ensure my target takes the hit quickly and without fuss.

The T Mag is a P Mag style and although it is a high capacity magazine *shudders* it looks good.

Internal Barrel Length 455mm Full CNC Machined MOD Rail with CNC engraved BRO marking Aluminium 6061 receiver with CNC engraved BRO marking.

Unique serial number CNC Machined one piece fluted outer barrel.

Steel Black Rain Ordnance Hexagonal Competition Compensator (KA-FH-53) “LET IT RAIN!!” laser engraved marking Dust Cover Laser engraved BRO marking Bolt Cover Steel Charging Handle with CNC engraved BRO marking The quick spring change system Version 2 gearbox helps to replace the spring and adjust the shooting power easily.

Mosfet assembly provides better trigger contact.

Folding Troy Style rear sight & front sight TWS (Training Weapon System) Interchangeable Motor Grip is a M4/M16 grip for AEG. It is designed to improve ergonomics with interchangeable front and rear inserts for personalized hand fit, gives the operator maximum comfort and control over the weapon. Package comes with 6 Pieces (Main grip, 2 pcs of front grip pads and 3 pcs of rear grip pads) (KA-TG-29-BK) 370 rounds magazine. (KA-MAG-72-BK) RRP £390

CONCLUSION

In a world of Krytac, Salient Arms and LVOA rifles (that I love) the Black Rain Ordnance does stand out and stand proud. It’s a little bit more expensive given the lack of Gucci internals but (and I do mean this) it isn’t bad at all. I feel I am being overly critical and it’s borderline snobbery. It does give you a bit of scope to do some internal work if you really wanted to. It’s not over priced, it looks brilliant and it shoots decent and for that price tag I wouldn’t complain at all.

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January 2017

Armoury ASG ARMALITE M15A4 AND M15 LTC

JERRY NOONE TAKES A LOOK AT TWO NEW MODELS FROM ACTIONSPORTGAMES; A PROLINE AND A SPORTLINE “AR” AND COMES AWAY VERY FAVOURABLY IMPRESSED BY WHAT HE SEES!

ASG ARMALITE M SINCE 1954 WHEN IT WAS first established as a division of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation, Armalite has been manufacturing popular “AR”-style sporting rifles and select bolt-action rifles in large calibres such as .338 and .50.

The company has a fabulous history including (and probably most famous for) employing a young Eugene Stoner. Stoner is credited with designing the original “AR” platform rifle for use by the US military in the Vietnam conflict and in fact, the “AR” designation for these types of rifles stands for “Armalite Rifle”, not “assault rifle” as most people think.

Their first design, the AR1 developed in 1952, used foam-filled fiberglass furniture and a composite barrel using a steel liner inside an aluminium sleeve.

This was little used but when they were asked to compete in a contest for an aircrew survival rifle, their AR5 and AR7 designs from 1956 saw production runs. This was followed by an invitation to compete for the new combat rifle to be issued to US forces, which led to the AR10. The AR10 lost the 1957 contest but many of its ideas were reused in the smaller and lighter AR15.

Tired of initial poor sales in the firearms market, Fairchild licensed the AR-10 and AR-15 designs to Colt. They sold their interest in Armalite in 1962 and that year Colt hit paydirt when they sold the AR-15 to the US Air Force! Commercial models were then sent to Special Forces in Vietnam, who reported great success with the weapon, especially with the diminutive Vietnamese. This led to it being adopted as the Army’s main combat rifle, as it was adopted in 1964 as the venerable “M16”.

Armalite had further brushes with success, especially with the AR18, an improved AR15 design. These modest successes were not enough to keep the company going though and they ceased operations in the early 1980s. The design rights

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January 2017

and name were purchased in 1996 by Mark Westrom, who re-launched the company as Armalite, Inc., now located in Geneseo, Illinois.

In 2013, Westrom sold Armalite, Inc. to Strategic Armory Corps. Strategic Armory Corps was formed with the goal of acquiring and combining market-leading companies within the firearms industry. In 2015 Armalite introduced 18 new products including AR10 and M15 platforms, proving that after trials and tribulations over the years, they could still produce modern and effective firearms platform.

Under licence, ActionSportGames (ASG) in Denmark produce a range of 1:1 models bearing the Armalite logo; this is an inclusive range that covers both their Proline and Sportline offerings so no matter what your budget, there’s something for every airsofter out there too look at!

PROLINE

The Next Generation Proline M15 series from ASG has been developed to meet the requirements of experienced users that demand a lot from their RIF and all the models have been

Armoury

ASG ARMALITE M15A4 AND M15 LTC ASG

ARMALITE M15A4 AND M15 LTC

extensively updated. By using enhanced parts, redesigned outer components and high-quality internals, the Next Generation Proline series offers quality, accuracy and upgrade possibilities, which means they are good to go right out of the box.

One of the innovative design features of the Next Generation Proline series, is the reinforced gearbox packed with enhanced components all powered by an ULTIMATE basic motor. The entire package is designed to be compatible with ULTIMATE Upgrade parts, ensuring any future upgrade to the RIF will have an exact fit and can be done without special modification to the individual components. The high performance piston is made of reinforced nylon with the addition of 4 steel teeth embedded at the peak stress point.

The sectional view of the piston is teardrop shaped, adding strength to the areas most vulnerable to mechanical fractures.

The piston head itself is an innovative design, with large conical shaped air inlets and flared outlets allowing more air to flow

E M15

through, reducing resistance and increasing rate of fire, while providing optimal compression.

The barrel features an inner diameter of only 6.04mm for optimal compression and performance, whilst the enhanced outer barrel is made from a strong aluminium alloy. The upgraded gearbox shell is made with special compound alloy casting materials and has been designed with reinforcements at critical stress points, to ensure the box is able to endure the extra stress any potential upgrade will put on it. The combination of taps along the lining and high-strength hexscrews prevents the box from twisting under stress. 8mm steel double-bushings reduce friction when the gears are under maximum stress, providing smooth running and minimum wear on the gearbox components and to further ensure long lasting and dependable performance, the gearbox has been fitted with an anti-reversal latch made from high-density steel.

Built for increased durability, high power and reduced energy consumption, the ULTIMATE basic series motor uses ball bearings and a high density steel pinion gear supported in an aluminium cage to ensure it will endure the extreme pressures and high rotations in both high-speed, or high- torque set ups. The combination of heat resistant enamelled wire and a high durability nylon cover built to withstand wear and high temperature, prevents short-circuits due to excessive heat and carbon dust.

Great care has been taken in designing the receivers, barrel and stock resulting in components that fit together perfectly, making the individual RIFs sturdy and strong; the solid build quality along with the POM hop-up and precision barrel helps ensure accuracy, making all Next Generation Proline models a sure hit on the range or on the skirmish field.

The ARMALITE M15A4 Carbine has authentic markings fully licensed by Armalite, Inc. and it’s a superb base for a project.

This solidly constructed Proline AEG, with full metal barrel and receiver, together with a six position collapsible stock and

“THE “AR” DESIGNATION FOR THESE TYPES OF RIFLES STANDS FOR “ARMALITE RIFLE”, NOT “ASSAULT RIFLE” AS MOST PEOPLE THINK.” www.airsoft-action.online

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Armoury ASG ARMALITE M15A4 AND M15 LTC

major drama! The modern looking high-cap magazine is constructed from durable polymer in a contemporary design and fits securely into the magwell.

With sound and durable internals, each Sportline AEG comes with a Mosfet unit installed in the stock. Due to the much lower electrical resistance in a Mosfet, it delivers a faster trigger response, higher ROF and elimination of switch burnouts.

All in all this is a very well thought out and very well made AEG; available in black and black/tan and with an asking price of only £150, this is a very attractive package - and I say “package” because it comes with a battery and charger. So if this is your first RIF it’s just a case of picking up some BLASTER BBs and you’re good to go!

GOOD TO GO! INDEED YES!

front grips made from heavy duty polymer, really is a durable and dependable AEG. It features a removable top handle with integrated metal sights, mounted on a picatinny style top rail on the upper receiver allowing easy mounting of optics. Pulling the charging handle opens the dust cover while pulling back and locking the simulated bolt to reveal the adjustable hop-up dial. To release the bolt, press the bolt release catch just like on the real weapon. All in all this is one tidy package indeed and priced iro £250 it’s great value for money too!

SPORTLINE

Of course ASG would never forget the newer player or the player on a budget, so they have also introduced new series of well-priced airsoft replicas with authentic Armalite markings in their Sportline range and in a variety of configurations to provide players with more options in regards to looks and functionality. My favourite from this range is the M15 Light Tactical Carbine, or LTC. The LTC, as do all the new Sportline models, comes with a five position stock with removable shoulder plate for quick access to the battery compartment; lovely concept and it works well. The LTC, as its name suggests, is a light tactical carbine built for speed, featuring a slim modern receiver in fibre-reinforced nylon and light-weight front-end with KeyMod elements. The buffer tube and outer barrel are both metal, as is the oversized singlepoint sling plate that comes as standard on this model, a nice touch at this level.

The LTC also offers a super-ergonomic pistol grip and the rail, in my opinion, is a thing of beauty! Slim and sculpted to ensure a firm grip, it features a continuous picatinny rail from the top of the upper receiver and you get neat flip-up front and rear sites fitted to this. On the six and nine o’clock aspects there are pre-drilled holes to accommodate traditional rail sections; two come with the AEG. On the base of the rail there are KeyMod slots; sadly you don’t get a section of KeyMod rail but these are easy and cheap to get hold of now, so no

“WITH AN ASKING PRICE OF ONLY £150, THIS IS A VERY ATTRACTIVE PACKAGE - AND I SAY “PACKAGE” BECAUSE IT COMES WITH A BATTERY AND CHARGER. SO IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST RIF IT’S JUST A CASE OF PICKING UP SOME BLASTER BBS AND YOU’RE GOOD TO GO!” 22

January 2017

No matter what your style of play, or indeed your budget, ASG have once again delivered what players want and need and that’s solid, well performing and highly accurate AEGs but still built under licence so that you know what you’re getting is as close to the “real deal” as possible.

Now you may have noticed that I’ve not yet mentioned power levels and this is for a good reason. As ASG are a respected brand whose products sell worldwide, they set power levels accordingly and the Proline RIF I received for test was definitely on the “warm” side. In the case of the Proline M15 this chrono’d with a .20g BB at 1.4 Joule/394fps but the LTC was a little more friendly at 1.07 Joule/340fps so I’d check with your local retailer if you do go the Proline route. Luckily the M15 features a quick-change spring facility, so this is easily remedied and it’s probably easiest to just have the retailer change out the spring for you when you buy your “Armalite”. That said these are both cracking AEGs and worthy of a place in any airsofters armoury!

For more information on the two models featured, along with the other “Armalite” variants and much, much more please do visit http://actionsportgames.com

Dan Wesson Valor Classic 1911 design

ActionSportGames® is a worldwide leader in the business of replica firearms and accessories manufacturing – including Airsoft guns, Airguns, CO2 guns and firearms replicas.

0141-1116_AirsoftAction_VALOR.indd 2

Join us on Facebook – “Team ASG” http://www.facebook.com/actionsportgames

0141-1116_November2016

1,2 joule CO2 blowback Airsoft pistol ~ Full Metal Version ~ ~ Realistic Blowback ~ ~ Chrome outer barrel ~ ~ Grip Safety ~

05-12-2016 09:26:09

Action Air THE NABV DUTCH OPEN

ACCOMPANIED BY DANNY YAU FROM REDWOLF AIRSOFT, NIGE HEADED OFF TO HOLLAND TO REPORT FROM THE DUTCH ACTION AIR OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP.

NABV DUTCH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP SINCE STARTING AIRSOFT ACTION nearly five and a half years ago (and yes, it really is that long), the one thing that has never ceased to surprise me is the rate at which the activity has developed and (dare I say it) …matured. Nowhere is that growth more evident than in the sport of Airsoft Practical Shooting.

Yeah, I know that is a bold statement as airsoft in general has seen a massive uptake over the years, with new sites and

shops seeming to open on an almost weekly basis and massive events like the NAE taking place. However, when you consider that five years ago “airsoft practical shooting” was derided in shooting clubs across the country and the fact that it is now “the fastest-growing shooting sport” in the UK is testament to how attitudes have changed.

Regular readers will know that we have supported airsoft practical shooting from day one, with coverage of events such as the Airsoft Surgeon European Championship, along with smaller, club-level matches. So it will come as no surprise that when I was offered the chance to head across to Holland and cover the Dutch Championship, I was not going to turn it down!

Danny Yau, from RedWolf Airsoft and Double Tap PPC was taking part and as I had to take a number of items with me (and he wanted to avoid the hassle of carrying his pistols on a plane), would be accompanying me in my jalopy.

SHOOT FAST, DON’T MISS!

First up, let me kick off by saying that “Action Air” (as airsoft practical shooting is now more widely known) is not for everyone. If you’re the type of airsofter who only likes it when you are facing a live opponent that shoots back, then this is probably not for you (although there are many skills learnt in Action Air that translate well to gameplay). However, if you like the idea of being continually challenged by just one person (and that’s yourself) to make you the best possible shooter you can be, then I highly recommend you give it a go.

So, Action Air? What’s it all about?

In simplistic terms it can be summed up by four words: “Shoot fast, don’t miss!”

Action Air is all about moving through a stage (called a “Course of Fire”), shooting at a variety of different targets as 24

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Action Air THE NABV DUTCH OPEN

you go. Most targets are static but many more are mobile in one form or another, some even trigger other targets into view, while others must not be shot. All in all, you really need your wits about you as you have to get round the course as quickly as you can, while hitting every target.

Sound simple? Well I can tell you from experience that it sounds (and looks) a lot simpler than it is!

There is also a fundamental difference when compared to “normal” airsoft… the number of rules you have to follow.

From the size and type of gun used, to how many rounds can be in a magazine, to whereabouts on your body a pistol can be holstered, everything is laid down in black and white so there can be no misunderstanding and when it comes to safety, well let’s just say that a duck’s bum probably isn’t any tighter!

I’d seen the guys from Holland at various events in the UK and at this year’s Euros they invited me, on behalf of the NABV, to attend the Dutch IAPS Open (in Holland, Action Air is known as “International Airsoft Practical Shooting”), an invitation I was delighted to both receive and accept.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Up until as recently as the start of 2013, airsoft was banned in Holland, however, a group was formed to fight the ban. The group was called the “Nederlandse Airsoft Belangenvereniging” (NABV), which translates to: “Netherlands Airsoft Interest Association”.

The NABV was formed to promote and encourage interest in airsoft in Holland and to protect the interests of those who took part and, after much representation and a number of meetings with the Government, airsoft was legalised for “training and sports purposes” throughout Holland on 13th January 2013. One of the stipulations for legalisation was that all participants must belong to the NABV, for which a fee would be charged. The NABV uses these fees to not only maintain itself but to run events, training and competitions. I don’t know how much money this raises for the NABV but I can certainly tell you this… They do not let it go to waste and nowhere was that more evident than when we arrived at the venue; the “High Performance Centre Papendal”, just outside Arnhem, in Holland.

“Papendal”, as it is known, is the largest training centre for elite athletes in the Netherlands and has some of the finest sports training facilities to be found anywhere, along with a 3 and 4 Star hotel and a rather good restaurant (well, athletes need to eat, don’t they?). I have to say that I was stunned to see the size of the place, set as it is in a forest and almost invisible from the road. Needless to say, the whole place reeks of sport and activity with constant reminders that it takes its role seriously, even down to creating a BMX track in accordance with the design of the track at the Rio Olympics! …and this is where 120 shooters would be staying as they took part in the event. Not too shabby at all!

“FROM THE SIZE AND TYPE OF GUN USED, TO HOW MANY ROUNDS CAN BE IN A MAGAZINE, TO WHEREABOUTS ON YOUR BODY A PISTOL CAN BE HOLSTERED, EVERYTHING IS LAID DOWN IN BLACK AND WHITE SO THERE CAN BE NO MISUNDERSTANDING AND WHEN IT COMES TO SAFETY, WELL LET’S JUST SAY THAT A DUCK’S BUM PROBABLY ISN’T ANY TIGHTER!” www.airsoft-action.online

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Action Air THE NABV DUTCH OPEN

THE MATCH

The match was being held inside one of the many different venues in the Papendal grounds, summed up by its name: “The Olympic Training Centre”.

Inside, a football pitch-sized hall had been laid out with 24 stages, 12 along each of the two long sides, meaning all would have a solid, brick backstop.

As we arrived late the night before, I hadn’t been inside the hall until I wandered in next morning and was immediately impressed with the size and atmosphere. Shooting was already underway and as I walked down the aisle between the stages, it was great to catch up with shooters from both the UK and further afield. However, something else caught my eye that would turn out to be extremely useful… all the way along one side of the hall was a spectator’s balcony.

Now that might not sound very exciting but one of the biggest problems with photographing Action Air is the requirement to stay behind the shooter at all times. This is both for safety reasons and so that you do not get in the way of either the shooter or the RO (Range Officer).

I could see that there were already people sitting up there (with eye protection on, of course) and quickly checked that it would be OK to take photographs, which it was. So, for the first time, I could get pictures of shooters from the front, complete with looks of concentration or frustration, depending on how well they’d shot!

The match would take place over two days, with 12 stages on each day and so it was vital that everything be done

to make the process as smooth as possible. One area that occasionally seems to be problematical is in the scoring, which is a fairly complex affair and usually requires the use of software to accomplish. At this year’s Euros, all scores for each of the 120 shooters were recorded on paper scoresheets which were sent back to a central point to be entered into a computer.

Proceedings were held up when it was noticed that one of the shooters had been recorded as being in a different Division to that which he actually shot. At the Dutch Open the NABV had given every Scorer a WiFi-networked pad and scoring was simply a matter of tapping the correct button on-screen, as the RO called out the results. Once done, the shooter would then tap an “Agree” button and the score would be immediately transmitted to a base computer, removing the need for tedious data entry and the potential for mistakes.

One of the things I really like about this type of event is the community spirit that prevails and when a certain shooter realised that his “out of the box” pistol had a problem, another shooter was quick to offer assistance and put it right, even though they would be in competition with each other.

As the first day progressed, it became apparent why some stages had fairly imaginative names, such as “Return of the Cow”, “Behind the Curtains” and “Move the Duck” – although I must stress that no animal (or duck) was harmed in the running of this event! Shooters were relishing the challenge and the fact that the event was indoors, in a centrally-heated, dry, wind-free venue with easy access to toilet and refreshment facilities, only added to the overall satisfaction.

The only issue I heard about all weekend involved the

“THE NABV HAD GIVEN EVERY SCORER A WIFI-NETWORKED PAD AND SCORING WAS SIMPLY A MATTER OF TAPPING THE CORRECT BUTTON ON-SCREEN, AS THE RO CALLED OUT THE RESULTS. ONCE DONE, THE SHOOTER WOULD THEN TAP AN “AGREE” BUTTON AND THE SCORE WOULD BE IMMEDIATELY TRANSMITTED TO A BASE COMPUTER, REMOVING THE NEED FOR TEDIOUS DATA ENTRY AND THE POTENTIAL FOR MISTAKES.” 26

January 2017

Action Air THE NABV DUTCH OPEN

The Winners Open Division

Senior Open Division

Senior Standard Division

1st: Jurgen Ronsse – Belgium

1st: Tim Wyborn – Great Britain

1st: Lars Hagemann – Denmark

2nd: David Meuken – Netherlands

2nd: Steve Taylor – Great Britain

2nd: Rene Hoeck – Belgium

3rd: Justin Cooper – Great Britain

3rd: Chi Hong Ho – Netherlands

3rd: Kevin Orinx – Belgium

Ladies Open Division

Super Senior Open Division

Super Senior Standard Division

1st: Tina Palmones – Great Britain

1st: Paul Van Den Bosch – Great Britain

1st: Marcel Smeers – Belgium

2nd: Jolanda Wigger – Netherlands

2nd: Steve Birtwhistle – Great Britain

2nd: Guy De Backer – Belgium

3rd: Trevor Sinclair – Great Britain

3rd: Mark Van Den Bosch – Great Britain

Standard Division 1st: Pavol Babensky – Slovakia

Junior Standard Division

2nd: Joeri De Haes – Belgium

1st: Matt Wyborn – Great Britain

Combined Results

3rd: Matt Wyborn – Great Britain

2nd: Alex Jakubko – Slovakia

1st: Pavol Babensky – Slovakia

3rd: Paul Wyborn – Great Britain

2nd: Joeri De Haes – Belgium

Ladies Standard Division

3rd: Matt Wyborn – Great Britain

1st: Dionne Reugebrink – Netherlands 2nd: Merceille Van Egmond – Netherlands 3rd: Myriam Dannemark - Belgium requirement to use Bio-BBs, which seemed to cause problems for a few shooters initially and which they thought might have possibly resulted in lower scorers than they expected.

With 12 stages shot, everyone could relax on Saturday evening and make use of the excellent restaurant and Bar facilities in the hotel. We chose to eat in the “2028 Restaurant” and it would be remiss of me not to say that the meal was one of the best I can remember eating in any restaurant for a very long time, if not ever. It really was superb!

A good night’s kip in a comfortable room was followed by an excellent breakfast and then it was back to business in the Olympic Hall.

The day flew by and in no time it seemed, the last squads were finishing their final stages, packing their pistols away and getting ready for the Raffle and Winners Ceremony.

SUMMARY

All in all, I thought the NABV Dutch Open was a truly excellent event. It was well planned, well managed and well run and held at a superb venue, all of which shows what can be done when you have sufficient funds and are an officially recognised sport.

I got to speak to shooters from all over Europe and everyone agreed how good the event was. Yes, of course there was the odd grumble, there always is but they were very, very few and nothing that was not handled with total professionalism.

All that remains is for me to congratulate all the winners and to say thank you to the NABV for inviting me to attend.

I thoroughly enjoyed the event and hope I can be back again next year, which promises to be even bigger and better!

www.airsoft-action.online

27

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MilSim HTIS OPERATION BLUE FOX II

HTIS OPERATION BLUE FOX II

OVER THE WEEKEND OF THE 12TH AND 13TH NOVEMBER, CONTRIBUTORS BILL THOMAS AND KELLY HARDWICK SET OFF FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE UK TO ATTEND “OPERATION BLUE FOX II”, RUN

BY HTIS AT THE FIRE SERVICE COLLEGE, MORETON-IN-MARSH AND REPORT NOW ON WHAT TURNED OUT TO BE A VERY CHALLENGING GAME! “RUSSIAN MILITIA FORCES supported by elements of the Russian Army have crossed the Border and ceasefire line and have attempted to take over a strategically located Military industrial Complex and Airbase and annex the area.

A NATO Military and Police Task force has been assigned to move into to area and remove all Russian Forces from the Complex and Airbase and secure the border to prevent further Russian aggression.”

This was the brief that everyone got well prior to “Blue Fox II” and set the scene for what was to be a memorable game but not always for the right reasons. HT Immersive Simulations, the game organisers, had gone to immense effort not only to secure a unique and never-played before site but to set up what became a much-anticipated game scenario. The player pack and joining instructions, sent out well in advance of the game, were absolutely first rate and excitement levels were high as I left for the site.

After a long, four-hour drive, I finally arrived at the Fire Service College just before last light and after a short wait we were all escorted onto the site. Once parked up it was straight to check in which, once again, was extremely well organised and the process straightforward. As I’d elected to make use of the camping facilities it was then time to get set up in a lovely meadow, where several portaloos had been put in place for us, so we didn’t have to traipse back and forth to the accommodation block.

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January 2017

MilSim HTIS OPERATION BLUE FOX II

Returning to the briefing area, those of us reporting on the game were given a thorough and professional media briefing, before retiring to the Bar to catch up with old friends.

I woke on Saturday morning to the sound of rain on the tent; although I’d hoped we’d avoid bad weather I’d kept an eye on the long range forecast and had packed my waterproofs accordingly. After a hearty cooked breakfast in the College cafeteria it was time to get geared up, chron’d and ready for the off. HTIS Directing Staff (DS) gathered everyone together for the main briefing in the College auditorium; the briefing was thoroughly professional, indeed one of the best I’ve seen and as 2 I/C for Militia Forces I was introduced to the players.

Coming up to “Zero Hour” I was a little concerned as some players were still lining up to get chrono’d and I was a bit dumbfounded when I saw people with multiple RIFs and even people that obviously hadn’t bothered to check their RIFs beforehand, as they were way over the power limit! I also had concerns over the preparedness of some of the players; it was

November in the UK, it was drizzling steadily and yet players were turning up in combat shirts and even T-shirts and simply wearing a chest rig or plate carrier. I was in my waterproof jacket and carried everything (bar additional ammo) that I needed for 24 hours in a pack that never came off my back all weekend!

The game was to start with a “Woodland Warm Up” which came as a bit of a shock to many; the reason for this was that HTIS had been advised the day before by the College that we couldn’t get onto the main site until 13:00hrs due to operational reasons. Sadly HTIS did not communicate this to the players and the seeds of discontent were sown.

OPFOR After a vicious firefight through woodland and then a large three storey building, 13:00hrs finally saw us onto the site proper and oh my, what a site it was! 1,000 acres of buildings, burnt out vehicles, structures, a motorway and even a wrecked train lay ahead of us. Due to a high number of players using up all their ammo in the first woodland encounter, more time was lost while everyone sorted themselves out. This annoyed some experienced MilSimmers, who still had partial ammo loads and were still good to go.

I was given the tasking of securing and holding our FOB, a dark multi-level structure with a superb field of view across the main area of the site and here I would stay for the next eight hours, sporadically in contact with NATO as they probed the area. Directly ahead of me lay the “Oil Refinery” where numerous contacts were taking place; due to Comms issues I didn’t have a working radio until darkness was falling but kept in touch with my CO using “runners”. Once good Comms were at last in hand, the full scale of what was happening became clear.

Comms had essentially collapsed across the site. The COs were not getting taskings from HTIS to hand out to their players and confusion was reigning! This in turn led to

“IT WAS NOVEMBER IN THE UK, IT WAS DRIZZLING STEADILY AND YET PLAYERS WERE TURNING UP IN COMBAT SHIRTS AND EVEN T-SHIRTS AND SIMPLY WEARING A CHEST RIG OR PLATE CARRIER. I WAS IN MY WATERPROOF JACKET AND CARRIED EVERYTHING (BAR ADDITIONAL AMMO) THAT I NEEDED FOR 24 HOURS IN A PACK THAT NEVER CAME OFF MY BACK ALL WEEKEND!” www.airsoft-action.online

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MilSim HTIS OPERATION BLUE FOX II

frustration, players had started to leave the game and “Chinese whispers” were in full flow.

As darkness fell we watched as NATO finally came out to play in force. Just as in the real world, Night Vision gear came to the fore and the NATO forces put this to very good use indeed; what they couldn’t have known was that some of my guys also had NODS, so we could track each and every incoming contact by their IR designators!

After some cracking firefights though, word got through to me that more players were leaving and that the Op would be halted prematurely at 20:30hrs; returning to the Command Bunker where this was confirmed, after a conflab with Paul, the “Russian Special Forces” leader we decided to call it a day at 21:00hrs, only to find (as we left the site) more and more NATO forces returning from their dinner…! Another missed opportunity to keep everyone “on side” lost. I’ll hand over to Kelly now for her take on things.

NATO

As the UK MilSim calendar starts drawing to a close, November hosted one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the year; HTIS Operation Blue Fox II. The Fire Service College in Moreton in Marsh was a relatively easy journey for me, at around a 1.5 hour drive from my home in the Midlands along the M40 and A429. It is well signposted and pretty hard to miss.

“NIGHT VISION GEAR CAME TO THE FORE AND THE NATO FORCES PUT THIS TO VERY GOOD USE INDEED; WHAT THEY COULDN’T HAVE KNOWN WAS THAT SOME OF MY GUYS ALSO HAD NODS, SO WE COULD TRACK EACH AND EVERY INCOMING CONTACT BY THEIR IR DESIGNATORS!”

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On the Friday evening, players arrived on site and signed in before being allocated a room within the accommodation blocks or being escorted to the camping area. Unlike my Militia counterpart I chose to stay in the accommodation block and I can honestly say the accommodation was better than some hotels I have stayed in! The rooms were toasty from the heating and were fully kitted out with a single bed, desk, TV, tea/coffee making facilities and an en-suite! After dropping all our kit in our rooms for the weekend, players headed to the onsite Bar that was open to us for the Friday evening and the retail area that hosted ASG, NUPROL, Viper, Swindon Airsoft and a couple of independent traders. This gave the players a chance to unwind after the drive down. After socialising everyone headed to the accommodation blocks to get some well needed kip for the weekend ahead and it was a very good night’s sleep indeed!

For this event I was chosen as the NATO force 2 I/C, which involved being the ground commander for our forces. For the NATO side, the operation started at the edge of a dense, woodland area and our first objective was to push the Russian Militia from the area and secure a HQ building just on the other side of the woodland. NATO forces formed two lines on the edge of foliage, with my own section leading the assault.

Before we set about our tasking to take the woods, my section divided ourselves into 3, 10-man fire teams and each rifleman was numbered either 1 or 2. On our IC’s instruction we exploded into action, with the first line taking ground quickly.

However, as the saying goes, no plan survives first contact!

At the first sign of contact, the right flank rushed ahead to engage the Militia, leaving the right flank short of men and as a result the remaining NATO forces had to spread out to continue taking the woods. P.A.S.T pepper-potted through the dense trees and foliage with our front line, with our number 1 riflemen deploying smokes and number 2 riflemen providing covering fire to move up. With this technique we quickly took ground and the Militia forces retreated. We approached the building en mass, flooding the stairwells and deploying pyro into rooms. The building was quickly taken by the NATO forces and HQ was set up ready for the weekend.

After taking the HQ building, taskings were given to each section and we were deployed around the site in vans. My section P.A.S.T was deployed into the scrap yard with the tasking to take buildings 3 and 4. As we arrived onto the scrapyard, a small group of NATO forces were already attacking the oil rig. My section and a small force of Police, including the head of Police, got to work on clearing the ground that lay ahead of us and our objectives. We cleared out the Militia forces from the area and quickly got to work clearing the sub building to use as our FOB and the buildings adjacent so we had a 360 degree circle of defence around our new ground.

Unfortunately, on the Saturday evening I received a call from home regarding a family medical emergency so I had to cut my time short at HTIS Operation Blue Fox II.

MilSim HTIS OPERATION BLUE FOX II

Of course, with any event there were a few hiccups and as this was HTIS’ first big event it was to be expected. Although I had a great time at the event, I think there are a few things that could be improved or would need to be changed if HTIS were to run a similar event in the future. I personally think the facilities were TOO good and comfortable as during MilSims I fully expect to be sleeping rough under a basha in the undergrowth, or in a barebones MoD buildings that are cold and slightly damp. I think having hot running water, heated rooms and a proper bed possibly spoiled the attendees?

I also feel once the event commenced we should have played throughout the night instead of breaking to get some well needed kip. Although I completely understand that some players don’t know how to look after themselves during events and having those eight hours of kip really helps in regards to morale and overall mood, I feel like it disconnected you from the MilSim “feel”.

There was also an issue with expectations due to conflicting impressions of what the event was going to be; for the MilSimmers it was too similar to a Sunday skirmish and for the Skirmishers it was too MilSim. Although a lot of players understood that the event was to be a structured/themed Skirmish, I feel this still proved to be a problem.

Lastly, the final problem that became evident to me was that comms between the teams were an issue. Failure of comms, people not having them and people not being able to use comms effectively meant some taskings were not given and some sections had to wait around for a firefight. The comms issue affected me as ground commander as I couldn’t get orders/taskings through to other sections and I had very little contact with HQ itself. To counteract this I spent my time with the majority of our ground troops and issued them taskings; due to the vast terrain and lack of light I felt it was unfair to send runners, which I took a lot of flak for online after the event.

Ultimately the event is what you make it. Despite the issues during the event, I thought it was a largely positive experience and I would definitely attend another HTIS event. The facilities on site were better than some hotels I’ve stayed in and the playing area was unlike anything I have experienced during my time in Airsoft; from the train yard to the oil rig, the Fire Service College was an unbelievable venue and I would say that it definitely tops the list of best Airsoft sites that I’ve played.

As previously stated, I did have to leave the event early due to a family emergency so I can only report on my experience of Friday/ Saturday but I felt what I did experience of HTIS was positive.

WRAPPING UP

Although Kelly sadly had to leave the game early I’m really glad that I stayed on to play the final morning. The HTIS DS re-briefed those who remained on a bright, sunny Sunday morning and immediately took the frustrations of players on the chin and accepted the shortcomings of the day before. This was a brave thing to do and was largely accepted as a positive by the players.

It was decided to just run the final morning as more of a skirmish game, with Marshals directly tasking units and it meant that at last we were free to experience the entire site; it turned out to be a great morning! Sometimes as players we need to adapt and overcome; we’re not babies that need to be constantly spoon-fed and if we take the initiative great things can come.

In summation I have to say that I personally, like Kelly, had a great time, playing alongside good friends on a totally unique site, that offered absolutely first rate facilities. Were there problems? Yes, there were. Were these dealt with effectively?

Sadly, no. Were all the players well prepared? I’d have to say not.

The upshot of this is that the HTIS DS and Marshals took an absolute storm of BS online after the event, to the point that threats were made against them which is just totally unacceptable. It’s true that Blue Fox II didn’t run as smoothly as it should but as HTIS have now made the decision not to run similar games again, thanks in large to the abuse they received, it appears that we’ll not have the opportunity to give them a second chance and that is just a huge, HUGE shame and I sincerely hope that someone else picks up the College, as losing that as a site would just be an enormous loss to the UK airsoft community.

Our thanks go to Snook Snaps for helping with additional photography in this report. www.airsoft-action.online

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Inside Airsoft COMBAT SOUTH

COMBAT SOUTH A TRIBUTE TO STEVE BANKS LES LEE RE-VISITS COMBAT SOUTH TO CATCH UP WITH EVENTS AND PAY HIS RESPECTS FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF A MUCH-LOVED AND WELL-RESPECTED FIGURE IN THE AIRSOFT COMMUNITY. SOMETIMES, WRITING A SHOP REVIEW isn’t as straight forward as it may seem and this is one of those occasions. Sure, the shop itself is as superb as ever and has seen a bit of a facelift since my last visit some years ago and of course it was great to see Russ again who is one of Airsoft’s genuine nice guys who he greets everyone with a smile and a warm welcome but on this occasion, behind the smile lies a deep sadness. That is what is going to make this feature a little different than one of

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my more typical, light hearted write-ups because this “Inside Airsoft” is also a tribute to a man, a father, a husband, a friend to hundreds, no... make that thousands of Airsofters, who recently passed away after a long battle with a brain tumour.

The man who, with his wife Judith and son Russ created the success story known as Combat South. That man is Steve Banks.

Combat South – The Shop opened its doors to the public in 2003 and has flourished over the years into a bright, modern retail unit, set in a small industrial park to the east side of the Portsmouth area and as such is very easy to find. Free parking awaits and to enter the premises, simply press the intercom and Russ will ping the door and you can climb the stairs to this first floor showroom full of everything Airsoft. Combat South is solely dedicated to Airsoft so if you are looking for outdoor equipment of the non-Airsoft kind then you are in the wrong place!

It was really good to see Russ again and his welcome is always genuine (and accompanied with a cuppa) and, of course, I was able to offer my condolences in person.

So after the usual 30-40 minutes of banter and catchup conversation, I figured that I had better do some work, so I fired up the Canon (camera) and got to work capturing images of a selection of sexy guns and gear and because the showroom is so bright and modern this was an easy pleasure.

When the photography part was complete, it was time to sit down with Russ and ask some questions about what is (and has been) going on in the world of Combat South over the last three to four years. And before I go any further, you may be wondering why I keep referring to it as ‘the shop’ but it will be

Inside Airsoft COMBAT SOUTH

clear when I tell you that CS have one of the South’s biggest, most established and finest Airsoft sites of the same name, which we will be featuring in the very near future.

So over coffee, I got to work and asked Russ to bring me up to speed with a series of questions that I had prepared: Les: Russ, it’s great to see you again after many years. So how about we start this with a little history behind the shop, especially for the new ‘softers out there that may be reading this.

Russ: “We opened the shop in 2003. After running a site since 1997 we had built up a strong customer base there and decided that people needed a nearer retail shop to support our growing site and back then there we’re very few around.”

Les: So who are the team behind this success story?

Russ: “The owners me (Russell) and my mum (Judith), also in shop we have Ian as well. Obviously myself and mum have been involved with the company since the very beginning in 1997 and Ian has been working here since October 2015. He has been involved with CS for around 8 years and last year he started full time with the company.”

Les: Out of curiosity and the fact that I know just how big your site is, do you operate a site shop as well?

Russ: “We do not offer a retail shop at our site but goods can be ordered and taken there on a game day.”

Les: So what can a customer expect (other than a very warm welcome) when they visit the shop?

Russ: “Everything is looked after from here. We deal with all our bookings and admin for the site as well as keep everything to do with our site here and then on the upstairs floor of our unit is where you find our shop. In the shop you’ll find pretty much everything to do with Airsoft - guns, clothing, batteries, chargers, ammo…..EVERYTHING!” Les: What are the most popular brands that you stock?

Russ: “Brands we usually stock here are Tokyo Marui, ICS, LCT, G&P, ASG, ACM China Brands, Element, 5.11, Viper, Nuprol and we can often source specific and non - stocked/out of stock items dependant on their availability.”

always worked very closely with our good mate Andy at UCAP and all their players to give them plenty of help when it comes to Airsoft retail and supplies.”

Les: Even though I know the answer to this one Russ, what is your favourite manufacturer of guns and why?

Les: What do you think or do that makes your customer service better than the next guy?

Russ: “We find TM have always been a bigger seller for us because they’ve been around as long as we have and the way they have developed and moved forward their newest offering, the recoil series and their pistols are pretty much our biggest sellers.”

Russ: “We always try and be as helpful as we can and listen to what people want and stock the right items for the games.

We talk all players through the basics and with the site as well we like to think we show the newbies of the sport everything they need to know to help them enjoy the sport and get them involved so the sport continues to grow.”

Les: Do you have an in-house gun technician and do you two tone?

Russ: “Gun repairs are done by myself, from being involved in the business for so long we like to think we’ve worked on pretty much every gun, so that’s quite a bit of knowledge under our belt, and yes we two-tone to order.”

Les: Do you have any connections or ties with affiliations, teams or other clubs?

Russ: “We work closely with a few sites in the area but we’ve

Les: Last one Russ, when it comes to receiving an order say, via your website, what is your typical turnaround time?

Russ: “If the item is in stock we can pretty much get it to you next day (if ordered at a reasonable time) so that we can catch the post. Out of stock items can vary depending on what it is. Nuprol, Viper and most Marui lines are very easy to keep in stock and get delivered quickly.”

Thank you for the candid Q&A session Russ. I get the impression that had your Dad Steve not embraced our sport/ hobby, then it is highly likely that we may not be sitting here now so I think it is a perfect opportunity to give Steve the credit and recognition that he so deserves, so would you be kind enough to offer an insight into your Dad’s involvement in airsoft.

Russ lovingly shared with us the following.

A few things about Dad… Combat South wasn’t the first thing that Steve did that involved Airsoft. It all started back around late 1994/95, when he had the idea of using Airsoft guns to run a shooting range at military shows and air shows being held up and down the country during the spring and summer months. The idea of the shooting range was 4 Airsoft guns firing at paper targets inside a British Army 12x12 tent, £1 for one midcap mag shootout and people loved it! Over two years of doing this he met some

www.airsoft-action.online

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Inside Airsoft COMBAT SOUTH

by doing a few corporate events to help us get our head around it all and then in late 1997 it opened for its first walk on - and it’s just grown and grown from there.

In and around 2003 Steve decided that the site had grown so much as had the customer base that it was time to expand Combat South into the retail world. Once again the hunt started and it lead us to were the shop still stands today. Steve Retired from his engineering lecturing job and decided to make Airsoft an even bigger part of his life. The shop started off small, just stocking a few key lines of Airsoft kit and has grown since then. Never once did he take his eye off the ball where it all started - at the woodland. He would always be over there, keeping it tidy and looking to build something new such as the village that is still there now and of course the massive fort complex that was designed and built by himself and the handy fleet of CS customers.

Not everything in Airsoft has been easy and Steve played a key part in pretty much everything Airsoft when things got tough. The making of UKASGB (UK Airsoft Governing Body) which helped sites get insurance “back in the day” when most insurance companies turned their back on insuring the sport.

And then of course the big fight back around 2006 that landed us with VCRA ruling in 2007. He was there for all of it and helped to keep the sport thriving that we all love and enjoy.

For anyone that knew Steve will know that he would do anything for Airsoft, he would talk to anyone about it and always be as helpful as he could no matter how mad the suggestions were by the players. He would never cancel any games, no matter what the weather and would always greet the players with a smile and laugh. He could be a man of few words sometimes but when he did speak they would be certainly worth Combat South listening to.

Unit 4 Sadly Steve Fairways Business Centre passed away on Airport Service Road the 2nd September Portsmouth PO3 5NU 2016 after a five a Tel: 02392 655636 half year fight with Web: www.combatsouth.co.uk a brain tumour and he will be sadly missed by everyone.

As Steve would always say in his morning brief: “It’s time to move out. Please play fairly, safely and honestly but most of all, have FUN!” Thank you so much Russ, having lost someone equally close, I can empathise how difficult this beautiful, loving tribute must have been to share and even though I only met your Dad twice, it was clear to me just how passionate his love of Airsoft was.

On behalf of everyone, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sharing that personal insight into the life of such an inspirational man, Steve Banks, who paved the way for so many to have such enjoyment and fulfilment.

May he forever rest in peace.

Les OUT!

Contact Details:

interesting people, such as Dave from Rebel Troop who were based in Reading and Paul and Ratty of Airsoft Adventures (Ratty now of BadgerTac) who were based at Greenham common as a retailer and skirmish site. Rebel Troop and Airsoft Adventures were only two of possibly eight skirmish sites in the whole country back then and Steve thought that maybe we needed something like them here in Portsmouth.

After searching around a site was found in 1997 which became “Combat South Woodland”. After months of getting the site tidy from a former paintball site that had been closed for four years, it was time to get the ball rolling. The site started

www.airsoft-action.online

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International FRANCE

IN OCTOBER A PRETTY RARE AIRSOFT EVENT TOOK PLACE IN FRANCE : A THREE-DAY OPERATION BASED ON THE VIDEO GAME FALLOUT, MIXING AIRSOFT GAMERS WITH LIVE ACTION ROLE-PLAYING AND AIRSOFT ACTION’S FRENCH CONTRIBUTOR, DIANE MONTAGNIER, WAS THERE. FOLLOWING THE BIG NUCLEAR incidents in 1950 (“The Big Boom”), our history takes place in Europe, in France, near Paris. The human beings can’t live anymore in town. They have migrated away from Paris and decided to build, into a providential forest, a village where only a few vegetation was able to grow! This village is the “Last Wall”, governed by Madam Mayor. She is inconsolable since she has loss her son.

She was saved by Helena 15 years ago, who helped her to create the village, but Helena also disappeared the day of the loss of her son.

In addition to the Last Wall villagers, other survivors try to survive in this hostile country. An antisocial faction, “The Disabled”, is managed by a Leader known as “The Vindictor”.

He is Madam Mayor’s lost son but he didn’t know that.

“The Liquidators” are a free faction of adventurers, opportunists, who have the possibility to join factions or stay between them. Inside the village of the Last Wall, there is also a Prophet named Nostra and a militia leader.

Several problems happens in the village, particularly since the Prophet Nostra, a big drugs consumer, have decided to create a religion for his own profit (money, power) via the faith. He cleverly used an old legend that tells that after the Big Boom, an ash rain has fallen on France. This new religion is based on the natural selection of the strongest human beings.

Several characters (NPC: Non-Playable Character) as a doctor, a barman, a trader or a restaurant owner are living on a small base (neutral zone of trading), where they can interact with all the human beings and give them quests.

The villagers are powerless faced to the Disabled, who are immunized against their ammunition, impure. The village is subject to an intense racket but the Disabled, very united, have decided not to kill the villagers, in order to plunder them regularly. Meanwhile, a secret faction, the “Martial Daybreak”, operates in Eastern Europe. It has pure material without any radiations. They lived in vaults and begin the conquest of the world. With their pure weapons and their pure ammunitions, they can kill the Disabled and the ghouls.

The arrival of a Martial Daybreak messenger causes a radical change into the Last Wall. The villagers are shared between partisans and opponents of Martial Daybreak. Indeed, the villagers know now that they can defend themselves against the Disabled but they are not inclined to join this faction.

However, the messenger decided to attack the Disabled, convinced by his strengths. Unfortunately, it ends in a big failure. That’s how the 15 years party of the village was cancelled.

The second day, Martial’s Daybreak discovered the messenger, badly wounded, who wasn’t able to indicate

E R F . . .

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International FRANCE

them that the village was now under the communist yoke.

The villagers decided to break off with Martial’s Daybreak and attack them, despite the few villager warriors. Nevertheless, the village is always under-equipped and is attacked by the Disabled. However, the villagers kept the control of their fate.

The Prophet, Nostra, opportunist, decide to resume the dialogue with Martial Daybreak, in order to create the “Scarlet Daybreak”. Dissidences still divided the village, bringing more vulnerability in front of Mutilated. Madam Mayor decide to negotiate a non-aggression pact with the Mutilated, and she secretly sold Nostra in exchange for peace.

The Liquidators, from their part, are divided into 2 groups: the first group with the Vault cult, which preach the faith for being saved by the Vault God (thanks to the Vaults), the second group are the French Royalists that are looking for the heir of the France Kingdom.

The third day, the Royalists discover that the heir is the Vindictor, Mutilated leader and Mayor’s son. They wanted him to ascend the French throne. Madam Mayor finally finds her son and proposes to Royalists to join the village. The Mutilated become villager’s allies thanks to Vindicator. Some villagers, afraid of it, left the village because they are not agree with this decision.

This Mayor’s decision is very decisive, all the more since the Royalist took up the most artefact, during the game : the Ash Diamond, formed during the big boom. This diamond allows to purify water and weapons but also to repulse radiations. A valuable asset for the villagers!

The Royalists can put the Dauphin on the throne. The Royalist’s victory succeed only with their incorporation in the Last Wall village.

The Scarlet Daybreak was not able to succeed its invasion and is evicted from the sector.

This was an excellent game and so we decided to ask questions to an organiser, Antoine, who is one of the two organisers who created this event.

AA: How long did you prepare this airsoft roleplay event?

Antoine: “All in all, it required 6 months and we were only 2 to organize it. There were many collaborations with AMA FRANCE, the field, in order to plan all the sector. Besides it, the second organizer worked for 4 full months to elaborate coherent scenario. She also created more than 150 quests for this 3 days game event. We worked together hard on the event communication and the objects crafting process in touch with the main theme.

“We made Steampack , drug doses, barrels, and brought more than 600 props for craft, labelled by color indications for the needs of trade or traffic.

“Christophe (Field’s owner) and I also maintained buildings for the safety of all.”

AA: How being faithful to Fallout universe by adapting it to airsoft and roleplay?

Antione: “Fallout is a big universe, easy to adapt because the time is stopped in the 50s. The use of old airsoft guns, Nerfs, and symbolic objects of this time (musics, posters, objects pick up in attics) allowed to create easily an atmosphere, a 50s context. It is much simpler than a SF theme for example.”

AA: How did you bring airsofters and roleplayers at this event?

Antoine: “Eveything was based on web advertisment and social media sharing (Facebook and website). We wanted a lot of roleplayers to give a theatrical touch.

This gives a realistic touch for airsofters.”

AA: What do you think about your event now it’s over?

Antione: “It’s a lot of work and personal investment. Particularly when 10 rolegamers said the week before they won’t come. We had to bounce back, because they were organizers too. Of course there were ups and downs, like any events of that kind. It’s pretty hard for an organizer to be, for 72 hours, close to each gamer, make sure that everyone understand the script, make sure that everyone stay motivated and that players are motivated enough to start quests.”

AA: Do you think airsoft and roleplay can fit together?

!

E L Y T S H R ENC Antoine: “Undeniably! MilSim is a kind

www.airsoft-action.online

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International FRANCE

of roleplay in fact: create a character, a character’s story, with its own body language. Everybody cannot agree with all of that of course and it’s really interesting to talk with them, to understand their own point of view.

“For me, it would be great to see more roleplay in airsoft.

You just have to dare impersonate a character and interact with other people. For example, everybody remind a fabulous medic who saved all his team during a Sunday game or has an anecdote with a gamer that play so amazingly his role.”

AA: Do you think you succeeded converting airsofters to roleplay and inversely?

Antoine: “I am sure! For some, it was their first airsoft roleplay event. A lot of airsofters discovered another face of roleplay: there is not only medieval!

Inversely, roleplayers discovered that airsoft is not only about shooting bbs!

“Airsoft roleplay Event is already too scarce in France. With this one, a lot of airsofters discovered roleplay and they liked it a lot! They talked with roleplayers and discovered their universe. A lot of airsofters began the game with replicas and finished with only a rubber knife! So yes, airsofters played the game, they didn’t complain despite having only a few bbs for the whole weekend.

That was a lot of fun for a lot of them!”

AA: “What do you think of the gamer’s free will?

Antoine: “I like the idea that every character has a free will and we encouraged it all the time during the event. Everybody was free to kill, create his own history and have the opportunity to change the script! We had a main scripted scenario (a lot in fact) but it was flexible enough in order to let people do what they want, discover what they want and make them understand that their actions can change all the story. This is what happened during this event. Royalists were the great winners, whereas they didn’t exist in our script!

We also though it would be good to see what the field owner, Christophe, thought of the event, as AMA (Airsoft Mission Adventure) France’s Christophe is the field’s owner.

AA: What do you think about this event?

Christophe: “It was a big co-working with Antoine. I worked 4 months to repair some structures, to make them safe and mark out the entire field. Everything had to be OK to receive 110 people.

I created a village (houses, a church) and developped others, like the fort (Mutilated’s base).

It was a hard work, but it’s a very good experience to move forward from.”

AA: Why did you agree to host this event?

Christophe: “My goal is to mix roleplayers and airsofters. I want to give logistic possibilities to gather together those two worlds. It’s a long term job, but very satisfying!

“The field is pretty big, I want to give to all gamers a big logistic and receive different kind of

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event (airsoft, renactment, rolepley, etc.). I adjust myself to organizer’s needs; if they need a special building, I will make it!

All structures and buildings then stay on the field, it gives the opportunity to other events to use them.

“I keep in mind that my field has to be affordable to everybody while keeping a high level of service (breakfasts, water bottles, electricity, and toilets). My goal would be to increase the average service quality in airsoft events. Anyway, I like to give a chance to airsofters (or roleplayers) in order for them to realize their scripts and wishes. It’s the best way to create links between airsoft and roleplay.”

AA: How to reconcile airsoft and roleplay?

Christophe: “Both parties must be really really informed that there will be airsoft, with few bbs and a lot of rubber swords.

All gamers must read the script and keep in mind the main scenario and rules. Of course, the dress code is very important for a full immersion. It creates links between everybody.

Roleplayers have theatricalizing experiences, they can share it with airsofters, especially when it comes to improvise when action is stagnating.”

AA: Is this event different of a Sunday games?

Chrisptophe: “Not at all for me since my role was only logistical. This event was my first big roleplay event. I learnt a lot from minor mistakes, I can tell to myself the next one will be better! For example, 3 days of gaming is a very long time, contrary to a Sunday game. The field is big. So, tiredness and physical effort is a very important factor to take care.

The mental tiredness is the worst thing to happen, so it’s very important to finish the day peacefully.”

Would you like to receive another event like this?

Christophe: “I would love to! A Star Wars event is planned. I already organised the “MadMax Thunderdome” event in April, which was really appreciated.”

AA: Do you allow foreign airsofters at your games?

Christophe: “Yes! A lot of Belgians and Swiss people come and few Dutchs I was surprised to welcome an American guy, with Japanese origins. It was during a WW2 Pacific war reconstitution. He wore his grandfather uniform. Full immersion for everybody! I am waiting for UK people but I have to

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practice my speaking English first!

And finally, some questions to gamers…

Forest: “My dress is directly inspired by Fallout 4 as I am a Commonwealth militiaman.”

AA: What do you think about this event?

Danniv: “I like New Vegas, but no one inspired me. Indeed, Fallout takes place in USA only. This event is in Europe. I was inspired by classical soviet dress gear but I add Post Apo accessories, close to the 50s spirit.”

Kevin, aka The Preacher (27 years old, nursing auxiliary): “I have a lot of fun, I play alone my preacher role.”

Kevin, aka Forest, (29 years old, Pipefitter): “Pretty cool! I discovered roleplay and I try to give life to my character.”

Arthur, aka Danniv (24 years old, translator student): “I have a mixed opinion. Some players don’t play their role, in spite of others. It’s hard to concile both.”

AA: Did you create a special dress or gun for this event? What is your investment?

Yann, aka The Repurgator (44 years old, UX designer): “I invested about 40€ for the dress. There is a lot of salvaged materials and clothings. I was inspired by western and Post Apo universes. I made a special shotgun/bayonet/chain saw only for this event!”

The Preacher: “Only salvaged materials and clothings. I created a Vault ex-voto, a main accessory for my character.”

AA: Are you from airsoft or roleplay? Will you try airsoft/ roleplay after this experience?

The Repurgator: “I am a roleplayer. I may try airsoft because I am really curious about it. The military side attracts me and this field makes me want to do something else.”

Ethan: “Airsofter! I probably will try fantastic medieval roleplay.”

The Preacher: “Roleplayer. Airsoft? Why not!”

Forest: “Airsofter for 13 years. I don’t think I’ll try roleplay.”

Danniv: “I am roleplayer since I am teenager. I practiced airsoft but I gave up in order to come back to roleplay.”

AA: What is your best memory?

Forest: “I invested about 200€ (dress and gun). Thanks to my job, I customised entirely a Jing Gong Bar10 with wood and scrap. The gun is still functional!”

The Repurgator: “It was when the vault was protected by 2 Mutilated. Me and my patner had to really negotiate. But finally, we managed to negotiate a cease fire! Next, when we met on the field, we were very friends.”

Danniv: “I invested about 50€ to complete a soviet dress. I belong to Martial Daybreak faction.”

Ethan: “Night exploration! I loved the negotiations, which were very rude and also to complete quests.”

AA: Which is your favorite Fallout and why? Were you inspired by it?

The Preacher: “Everybody venerated me while I only told rubbish to them! Haha!”

The Repurgator: “I like Fallout 1 and 2. They are more trash and uncensored than the others.”

Forest: “Definitely Madam Mayor’s extraction to Mutilated’s camp! It was an amazing turn of events. Strangers everywhere, nervous tension, it was THE roleplay moment where I had to keep calm, be reactive and vigilant, furthermore because I was the Mayor’s bodyguard!”

Etienne, aka Ethan (28 years old, chartered accountant): “I prefer Fallout 3 and New Vegas. New Vegas before the others because there is a lot of factions which interact which each other. However, it didn’t inspire me for my dress.”

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GITAG AIRSOFT NATION

AIRSOFT NATION JERRY NOONE IS ALWAYS INTERESTED IN UNIQUE RESOURCES THAT WILL BENEFIT EVERY PLAYER, WHEREVER THEY MIGHT BE AND WHATEVER THEIR STYLE OF LOADOUT IS. RECENTLY HE WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE INVOLVED AT THE VERY START OF THE NEW COMMUNITY ONLINE RESOURCE, AIRSOFT NATION. WE ALL KNOW THAT SOCIAL media sites are getting more and more proscriptive about what content we publish and many of us believe that at some, yet unspecified, time in the future this could widen into a “ban” situation. Firearms are certainly under attack already and even our beloved replicas are constantly under scrutiny.

You can therefore imagine how delighted I was to hear from Graham Hoffman, the clever boffin behind the new social site exclusively for airsofters, AIRSOFT NATION. At the time we started talking Graham was in the run-up to the re-launch of the site, keeping everyone up to date with developments using live streams online. I’d tune into as many of these as I could and, after speaking to Graham at some length, was one of the lucky few to get early access.

On the Saturday after the official launch I hopped online to check out what was happening on AIRSOFT NATION and was staggered to see there were already 300 members, both individuals and groups. I was also excited to see that the “airsoft map” was quickly populating with sites and shops and that the “private sales” area was already in full swing; literally everything I needed to find was there in one place.

As with all things after the initial surge things did slow a little but I’ve gone on to watch the numbers build steadily so that as I write today there are nearly 600 individual members and 63 community groups already in place!

The “airsoft map” feature is also populating well, with the number of sites building nicely; these are differentiated into both Woodland and CQB sites so you can see exactly what’s on offer. Simply clicking on the site icon will take you through to their contact details, whilst another click takes you to their own AIRSOFT NATION page where you’ll find more details.

It’s a really super idea and has been very well achieved, so I got together with my latest fave “Geek”, Graham, to find out a bit more.

AA: So Graham, in your own words please tell me what led you to set up AIRSOFT NATION?

Graham: “Airsoft Nation was my concept of creating a social network for airsofters; with the added features of providing players the information, resources and tools required that a new or experienced player could use.

“It was an idea that had been going through my mind about 6 months before I started; frustrated by having to search for my nearest sites, any upcoming MilSim events and then selling RIFs once Facebook started removing the groups. The division of UK Airsoft is something I’m keen to help resolve and Airsoft Nation is my vision and attempt at providing a central hub for all players.”

AA: Who are the key people involved?

Graham: “Most of the work from the start has been done by myself, although I’ve had plenty of players testing and providing feedback from the start. This feedback has been invaluable as it’s very easy to get stuck in my own bubble.

Recently, a friend (Chris “Mumbles” Wyatt) has started to get involved heavily and will be supporting with the backend management while I can focus on features and content.”

AA: When and where did you start running the website and how’s that been going?

Graham “This is my second launch of AN, first one happened in May 2016. Not only the website but also an iOS and Android App. Unfortunately, this “big bang” of a launch pretty much died after 3 days but it was a good test to see how many players were interested (around 500 registrations in 48hours).

“The relaunch happened towards the end of October and it’s been a lot more stable. This time I haven’t released the mobile apps (coming soon) but the site is mobile friendly and the gradual release allows me to fix all the teething issues.

Since launch things have gone well, although activity has been lower than I’d hoped for. The key will be to provide enough functions to keep players from returning to Facebook. That’s why I’m releasing a messenger for 1-on-1 players shortly.”

AA: Who do you see as your target customer for your service?

Graham: “What good would be a hub for UK Airsofters if I excluded anyone?

“Airsoft Nation aims to unite the community and that starts firstly with the players. Whether new or experienced you can create a profile, join or create groups and find all the resources whether new or experienced.

“In addition to the players, Site Owners can get registered and add their site on the Airsoft Map. This also true for Retailers who want to feature on the retail map. Ultimately anyone who is involved with Airsoft can find a place on AN. Sure, for now there isn’t a focus for business specific features but as the site grows I will be outreaching to airsoft businesses and asking them exactly how AN can assist them and still provide players a great experience.”

AA: What are the key features of the service and how do they benefit players?

Graham: “Right, I’ll start with the social network features: • Player Profiles/Wall • Groups • Personal Gallery • 1on1 Live Chat and Private Messaging

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GITAG AIRSOFT NATION

“Then just some of tools and resources at AN: • Sales area – Sell your RIFs and kit without risks of being banned • Site Map – Find your nearest site, whether it’s woodland or CQB along with all the necessary details.

• Retailer Map – Find your local retailer • Event Map – Find skirmishes, milsims and other events in your area.

• Airsoft TV – A collection of latest YouTube Videos • User Guides and Latest News “All these features are still being built on and new features are always on the way but it’s a good point of launch that’s for sure.”

AA: I see that you have regular updates to the app; are there more planned?

Graham: “The site is constantly evolving, especially straight from launch. I’m taking all the feedback on-board and tweaking the site in a live environment.

“This week we’ve just released the “Achievement System”, which rewards players for their positive contributions and impact towards the AN Community. I never want the site to feel stagnant as I know either through new features, community discussion or written articles that the site will always grow and develop.

“As the current roadmap stands, I’m planning to release the “1on1 Chat” before this publication is released and then the mobile apps by Christmas. I have a long list of ideas but if anyone feels inspired with future ideas please let me know.”

AA: Can teams contact you directly with their team or group details?

Graham: “Teams can register a “Group” page after logging in, individual players should set up an account. If they wish, they can add a “Team” account to AN and ignore the “Full Name” field.”

AA: Can shops and sites do the same?

Graham: “Absolutely, they can also add themselves to the Airsoft Map. If someone else has already submitted their relevant information they should click “Business Owner?” to take control of the page.”

AA: How do you see AIRSOFT NATION evolving in the future?

Graham: “I’ve put everything into this, I want to provide a stable platform for the future of UK Airsoft. I truly believe that it is only a matter of time before Facebook cracks down with its anti-gun policies and Airsoft/RIFs will be caught in the firing line (no pun intended!).

“Right now it’s about creating easy, bug-free experience for both desktop and mobile users. For 2017 it will be about creating content for players, working on a MilSim calendar, launching the AN podcast and more airsoft coverage.

Promoting UK airsoft as a whole will be high on the agenda and working with companies to help them grow and get involved with AN without becoming a virtual salesboard will definitely be addressed.

“Finally, there are some features in development that I’m discussing with UKAPU to help make a better community. A lot of this is hush-hush but let’s just say 2017 is going to be absolutely awesome for UK Airsofters.”

AA: If someone reading this article likes the sound of what you offer, what should be their next step?

Graham: “Go to www.AirsoftNation.co.uk and click the Register button. There’s a contact form on the page if you get any questions or have any feedback. Alternatively add me to friends on AN – https://airsoftnation.co.uk/community/gtech/ “Thanks for the support AA!” AA: You’re very welcome Graham, a pleasure talking to you and we certainly hope to see AIRSOFT NATION go from strength to strength in the future!

www.airsoft-action.online

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06/09/2016 17:53

Debate HPA

UNDER PRESSURE? IT’S DEBATE TIME AGAIN AND THIS MONTH GADGE ASKS… “HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HIGH PRESSURE AIR?” PERHAPS ONE OF THE MORE controversial “recent” developments in the hobby is the increase in the use of High Power Air (or HPA) powered airsoft guns on sites - but HPA is not a recent concept. As Frenchie’s piece on the venerable FAMAS in last month’s issue pointed out, before the AEG came of age airsoft guns were either springers or powered from an air or gas tank reservoir. Some of the earliest “niche” guns, like Shoei’s Mp44, were run on a HPA set up and were one of the few reliable options for players who wanted a WWII German loadout but didn’t want to use a “captured” Marui Thompson So we wanted to know how you felt about HPA. Did you feel that it gives you the freedom to play for extended engagements without worrying about changing batteries or gassing up individual mags? Or perhaps you felt that the hose

and tank arrangement ruined the “suspension of disbelief” in our wargames?

With companies like Alphastar providing drop in kits to increase the range of platforms that can take HPA kits, it is highly likely we’ll see an even greater diversity of HPA airsoft guns. While, at the moment, most HPA RIFs tend to take the form of the classic and popular M4, new “drop in kits” are allowing airsoft wielders to field AK styles RIFs and others, increasing the options available to the user.

Unlike many of our debates in which a wide range of views are expressed, this debate seemed to largely come down to two views, held by two different camps. Many of you felt that the most worrying thing about HPA was its potential for unfair or dangerous play. In many HPA set ups the user is able to adjust www.airsoft-action.online

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overkill. I just don’t feel that being able to empty a hi-cap in 5 seconds is really something that belongs in airsoft. Same with hyper ROF AEG’s really. Sure, the technical achievement is there but you shouldn’t need to shoot a Lego factory’s worth of plastic to score a hit.”

Shaun Kane: “Used properly I can’t see a huge problem with them but they can have an insane ROF. And it’s easier to adjust them than change a spring. I did hear of one fella chronoing in and it being locked off with a cable tie, then cutting the tie, upping the power and replacing the tie with another of the same colour. However he upped it too much and you could hear the difference! He wasn’t welcomed back. I also don’t see why you would want to carry the extra weight personally.”

Andrew Lane: “The only problem I can see with them is reliability. All the guys that I know that use HPA have had problems with their guns.”

Darren Pamplin: “Paintball’s bastard child! I’ve Never liked them personally... open to abuse by so many unscrupulous players. Besides, if you want to play in the woods with something on a lead buy a bloody dog!”

the PSI of the air flow and the rate of fire of the gun and many of you felt that this was too risky. While there is a potential for the “cheat” to prosper in this way, it’s only fair to accept that running a hot gun is not unique to HPA and that with other RIFs the determined “bad sport” can always find a way to break the site limits.

In contrast, however, proponents of HPA found that it was an ideal system for the British climate. Those wanting the realism of gas guns often found that the weather is simply too cold to allow them to function properly for a large proportion of the year but with HPA this was no longer a problem. It was pointed out by one or two of you, however, that if you want “realism” from your shooting experience, the tank and hose a HPA set up requires often negate this.

So, is HPA breath of fresh air or a blast from the past? Here’s what you had to say…

Scott Scorch Chambers: “There’s no denying they perform like a monster but with easily adjustable FPS and rate of fire of the platform is the most open to abuse.”

Ollie Jeffrey: “I don’t have a problem with HPA and HPA guns at all. What I do have a problem with is what can be done with them. I’ve seen Polarstars run at utterly ridiculous rates of fire which really doesn’t need to be a thing. Why? Overkill. I’ve seen someone take near enough 30 bbs from a Polarstar at close range because it was cranked to 11. That was less than a second of firing and also ideally when the gun should have been on semi auto to avoid

Tim Jacobs: “I’d like to give it a go but the high price and the legal uncertainty with regard to implementation of the soon-to-be-legalised limits in the Policing and Crime Bill have put me off for now. On the other points, my local site has put a rate of fire limit in place because of HPA users running 40+ rps at the site limit. Some HPA users complained, citing High cycle AEGs but though they can run high ROF speeds, they tend to run under 300 fps.”

Stephen Birtwhistle: “I think they are open to abuse, so sites should make them use mid cap mags to stop the spray and pray players that use them. If you want to use HPA go and play paintball.”

Marcus Shipley: “I hear people don’t like playing against them as some players cheat and change their psi during game play, which is as bad as people not taking their hits. I myself have just purchased a HPA set up where I’ll be using the 12g Co2 cartridges. I can’t adjust the psi as the stock is in the way, also the FCU for the engine is going to be locked away in the forward mounted PEQ box so I can’t adjust the rate of fire, which I think will be the best way to champion the use of HPA In a fair game.”

Ben Eldridge: “I love my Tippmann on HPA. I love the fact I don’t have to worry about batteries, or constantly filling up gas mags on a gas blow back rifle, or being unable to use it due to the cold weather etc (which is a problem you don’t get with HPA). As long as people are sensible and don’t adjust rate of fire after chrono and keep the ROF sensible then it’s all good.

Once mine is set up and chronoed it doesn’t get touched. Just keep it sensible, don’t spoil it for others and give the system a bad name.”

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“I know that support and sniper weapons need to have different rate of fire and power to enable different battlefield roles, however, it is still a game and there are limits that need to be adhered to. The ability to just crank it up after safety checks worries me a lot as I have seen enough examples of abuse elsewhere and I know full well if it’s possible someone will be doing it.”

Norman Haggar: “I don’t like HPA. Sorry but a gun with tubes coming out of it and a big bottle of air doesn’t look real to me.

I like the freedom an AEG gives, the realism!

“I don’t have an issue with players using them, just an issue with the ease they can be altered mid-game to make them “hot”. We are an honesty-based sport and we have been since day one and in the last 10 years the honesty factor seems to be slipping. Not all, obviously, but some!”

Richard Palmer: “I’m looking at the Mancraft HPA kit for AEGs for the purpose of building a DMR. No issue with rate of fire as its semi-only but it’s still open to abuse with the fps as you can turn the regulator up. I’m afraid some humans seem to have the “muppetry gene” and they will do what they want to and sod the rest. Play with honour.”

Steve’s Airsoft: “I’ve finally gone down the HPA route and so far love it. Living in a country where the weather isn’t the greatest is a real pain for a GBBR user and this route has taken that worry away. I can see why people are concerned in regards to abusing the power regulation and such but I have to ask: Do we want these people in Airsoft anyway? No! Catch them and kick ‘em off!

“On the one hand I’ve also seen videos of very high ROF aegs and such. I just can’t see the point of it, how utterly uninteresting to just spray and pray everywhere! As they would say in video games “Learn To aim!”

“Overall I welcome HPA. I’ve always said about this hobby/ sport that it’s the diversity it has that keeps me going and just like many other things in life, it will be the minority that ruin it for the majority.”

Matt Phillpot: “The pipe work and then hiding the large tank just ruin the aesthetic of airsoft. I am fan of LARP, FilmSim and MilSim games. Nowhere in all of that should there be a pressure hose running to a backpack - unless someone comes up with an airsoft-safe flamethrower lol!

“In past engagements I was battered by an MG42 running an HPA setup. At extreme range the bbs were painful and the rate of fire was insane. At closer range I was having my skin peppered it did reduce the fun of the day. www.airsoft-action.online

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Loaded or Unloaded FOOTWEAR CHOICES

CHOOSING THE WRONG BOOTS CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE TO HAVING A SUPERB DAY ON SITE, OR GOING HOME EARLY. JERRY NOONE LOOKS AT MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE OF FOOTWEAR, IRRELEVANT OF YOUR BUDGET.

T O BO P M CA DURING THE COURSE OF MY professional life I’ve been lucky enough to work directly with some of the best bootmakers in the business, both in relation to military/tactical models and those for outdoor pursuits. For both end uses the requirements of the footwear will be broadly similar and mainly to do with comfort, support, protection and suitability for the intended terrain.

Most good bootmakers will have a range of models to cover every eventuality, from lightweight, quick drying boots for jungle environments, sturdy boots with great support for urban environments and even thermal-lined waterproof versions for the deepest of winter months. One of the great things about how we play though is that we’re unlikely to be wearing our boots for more than 36 hours straight at a MilSim and usually it will be just a matter of hours at our local skirmish site. Does this however mean you can save a few bob by buying into cheap boots for airsoft?

My answer to this would be an unequivocal “NO!” as not looking after your feet, or wearing badly fitting boots can have severe ramifications. Ask yourself… is, for instance, a boot designed for the deserts of the Middle East going to be the ideal model for the UK in the depths of winter? You may say “well, my desert boots are Gore-Tex lined so they’re waterproof and I’m only wearing them for a short while so they’ll be fine” but are you analysing this closely enough?

A good desert boot will inherently be made with less insulation than a winter, or indeed even a temperate model, so as much as a good waterproof technology will keep your feet dry the boot overall will leave you with cold feet, or worse, on a snowy morning. Cuff height may also differ, as in general a winter boot will have a higher cuff to keep out snow and spindrift. I was at a game just a few weeks ago where I stepped into a water-filled pothole deeper than the height of my desert boot cuff and although they’re membrane-lined, water does tend to get in through the big hole on the top where your foot goes in!

So why not just wear wellies? Well, two things here really; firstly wellies are pretty much always not going to be breathable, so although they will keep water out and with specialist socks be warm but they will also keep moisture in. Someone once told me that we have more than 250,000 sweat glands in each foot, making them the most perspiring parts of your body.

Your body can produce as much as a pint of sweat per day per foot and if you’re wearing wellies most of that will stay inside the boot! Secondly most basic wellies offer very little support.

You’ve also got to build into this equation that boot manufacturers make different outsole units for different conditions; this may not on the face of it be a major concern but if the tread pattern of the outsole has been designed for warm, dry conditions how will it fare in wet grass or on wetleaf covered rock? Let me tell you… not very well at all and you’re seriously asking for a slip which could lead to a turned ankle or worse.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BOOT?

In our “Hi-Speed, Lo-Drag” world of airsoft, one of the most important things is your equipment, especially a good pair of tactical boots. Tactical boots for professionals need to stand up to wear for extended periods of time; although we as airsofters don’t particularly need this level of performance, having it is an absolute plus. When choosing a tactical boot, look for a style

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with superior support, lightweight and durable construction, comfort and protection from the elements and rough terrain.

A good boot for airsoft will also provide heightened traction in any tactical/gaming situation that you may face.

The height, midsole, outsole, heel and structure of the boot factor into its support level too. Ideal tactical boot components include a 6 to 8 inch height and a heavy-duty, yet flexible and lightweight sole to provide traction and grip both in and out of the woods. A good fit that doesn’t sacrifice comfort is crucial in choosing your boots. The use of EVA foam materials guarantees lightweight, cushioned support in the midsole of your boots.

The best tactical boots are easy to put on and take off at the end of the day. Many boots on the market feature fragile side zippers or complex laceup closures. A good boot will feature a combination of eyelets and D-rings in the closure system, which allows for a personalised fit just by adjusting the lacing pressures.

Flexible and lightweight material

construction is an essential component of a good tactical boot, specifically to protect you from the weather. A waterproof exterior or membrane is a crucial boot feature to keep you protected from the elements. By using breathable technologies waterproof boots prevent moisture from building up and potentially forming harmful bacteria and blisters but also allow for perspiration to get out. For even greater protection in the winter months, look for boots that are both waterproof and insulated. Insulated linings keep warmth inside the boot so that you can stay comfortable and protected during cold weather games. We may all face a range of weather conditions on any site through the year, so don’t let your boots hold you back from enjoying the game!

When you talk about style and comfort, you should think about only good quality boots, as they are manufactured taking into account the best type of materials, construction, padding, cushioning and inner soles. Such boots provide great cushioning and support to your feet as well as avoiding any foot pain and discomfort that arises due to longevity of wearing; your best friend is a good quality tactical boot that provides you the best possible safety, comfort, durability and flexibility over uneven and rough surfaces. Such boots are obviously made from the top quality materials that offer high performance and long-time comfort and safety for your feet.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, let’s look at some models in more depth.

SALOMON FORCES XA PRO The XA Pro is certainly featherweight, coming in at only 442g per boot in size 9 and, in my mind, is an ideal example of the full summer style preferred by the “tactical athlete”. The XA Pros are unlined so not waterproof but they make use of an anti-debris mesh outer so are immensely breathable; the mesh lets any moisture build-up inside the boot dissipate almost instantly which is great for general comfort and of course a dry foot is also less prone to rub points and blisters.

The boots also benefit from stealth design and printing in non-reflective materials, a protective rubber toe cap, a positive and foam protected heel cup and a gusseted tongue with lace pocket for Salomon’s innovative Quicklace system. The boots have a soft textile inner lining which is comfortable even with thinner socks.

The sole construction is once again specific to Salomon, as the Pros have a non-marking Contagrip 3D Advanced Chassis combined with a dual density compressed and moulded EVA midsole. EVA plays a role in the injected sockliner and shaped footbed with the whole thing rounded out with the excellent OrthoLite® inner soles.

The feel and fit of the XA Pros is more akin to a high

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Loaded or Unloaded FOOTWEAR CHOICES

quality running shoe; Salomon also make those for the civilian market and their “cross” trainers are industry leaders. You can certainly see where they have gained inspiration for a midheight boot! This really is an ideal hot weather assault boot that provides underfoot stability and ankle protection, with an extremely breathable mesh upper. These are boots you can literally wear all day, in all situations.

The grip from the outsole is truly outstanding and even though the Pros really are very light they at no time feel insubstantial. The fit and the performance inspire confidence from the word go and given Salomon’s hard won reputation for durability I see no reason whatsoever that the XA Pros are going to keep performing for a good long time!

The XA Pro 3D Mid Hot Weather is available for £134.99 in UK sizes 7 to 12 and come in Navajo (tan). If you require a waterproof version then the Gore Tex lined “Blackout” model is also available for £149.99 from www.hueys.co.uk.

LOWA ZEPHYR GTX A couple of years back I found myself coming out of the winter months, looking forward to a spring of skirmishes and MilSims, without a pair of lightweight boots in the gear pile.

The thought of having to break in a new pair always fills me with dread as well so I was extremely careful in my search for a new pair.

One model of boot that I found myself returning to time and again was the Zephyr from Lowa. I’d been using their full leather Mountain Boot for a while and it had performed and continues to perform, exceptionally well. Having become

something of a Lowa “fanboy” I decided that the Zephyr GTX could well be the replacement I was looking for!

As part of Lowa’s Task Force range I was more than aware that they are highly rated by both UK and US SF alike as a tactical lightweight desert boot. The Zephyr GTX fulfils the requirement for those operating in a lightweight role who require a Gore Tex lining. They feature a slip lasted construction with an injected Lowa “Cross” sole (more about that in a bit). The upper is a clever combination of suede leather (1.4 - 1.6 mm) and Cordura and a full Gore Tex VISION 3LY inner lining ensures waterproofness. They weigh in at a meagre 1120g per pair, with a very supportive mid height cuff; the foot is held firmly in place courtesy of closed hook lacing.

The Zephyr also features Lowa’s innovative MONOWRAP® 2 sole unit construction with a firm 7/8 TPU stabilizer is the most stable and offers optimal traction and perfect support with its high-quality surface materials. The system features a PU heel stabiliser, a PU-Frame, an additional plastic stabiliser and the “Cross” outsole. The plastic stabiliser element features in all Lowa multi-functional footwear, improving ankle and joint stability and torsional rigidity.

I’ve continued to wear them on an almost daily basis to date and have now subjected them to some pretty foul conditions; in all situations other than full, snow on the ground winter they have performed admirably.

The Lowa Zephyr GTX is now available in a slightly darker coloured Coyote Tan version for use with UK MTP or multicam types of uniform and clothing but I have to say that given the sporty look of them, they look pretty sharp with a pair of tan cargos or even jeans too; expect to pay iro £130 for a pair from www.lowamilitaryboots. com.

SALOMON QUEST 4D GTX Salomon are no newcomers to the performance footwear market, in fact they’ve been making mountain and snow sports boots since 1947! They’ve always been about development, quality, craftsmanship and performance and their latest models show every bit of their undoubted class.

Details and specifications, apart from colour, are pretty

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51

CONTRACTOR PANTS

ELITE JACKET

ELITE BASEBALL HAT

TACTICAL T-SHIRT

n 6 Pocket, 2 with inner felt lined utility compartments

The Elite jacket is made from water resistant Micro-shell material, offering the user maximum comfort.

n Made from Nylon/Cotton

n Super heavyweight 220gsm cotton

n Re-enforced knee panel with knee pad compartment n Elasticated waist panel on rear for added comfort.

Material: Ripstop Polycotton

Material: Micro-Shell Sizes UK: S-XXL Colour: Titanium SRP: £59.95

n Rip-stop tear resistant n Front Velcro ID panel n Velcro size adjustment Sizes: One size fits most Colour: Titanium

n 2 sleeve pockets with velcro Sizes: S-XXXL Colour: Titanium SRP: £22.95

SRP: £9.95

Sizes: 28”- 42” Colour: Titanium SRP: £42.00

>GET THE

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE

TACTICAL

STOCKISTS / CATALOGUE

www.vipertactical.co.uk

Loaded or Unloaded FOOTWEAR CHOICES

much identical for the civilian and “forces” version of the Quest. The seam-sealed Gore-Tex membrane bootie gives your feet plenty of protection from water, mud and snow. You can literally stand in a puddle for hours and not worry about your feet getting wet and soggy. You can also walk about on snowy roads and not worry about your feet freezing off. And because of the way the Gore-Tex functions, these boots are very breathable so your feet don’t overheat.

These boots have amazing traction. The outsoles are Salomon’s’ own Contagrip, which provides some serious traction on pretty much any wet or dry surface. And you don’t have to worry about scuffing up any floors, because the outsoles are non-marking. The overall quality and use of the materials used on these boots is incredibly high. Rubber, leather, Gore-Tex, nylon; these boots use materials that have proven time and again how capable they are in the harsh environment. You’ll easily get a few years or so out of these boots before you have to even think about replacing them.

I’ve had numerous Salomon boots and running shoes over the years and none of them have ever let me down. They’ve always given great service and lasted well. This extra light boot gains stability and comfort from Salomon’s most advanced trail running technologies. The full-height ankle combined with their 4D Advanced Chassis technology offer great support and stability. The Quest has a full waterproof breathable Gore-Tex Performance Comfort Footwear bootie, split suede leather upper and protective rubber toe and heel caps for weather protection and outstanding durability.

The Quest 4D GTX is available from most good outdoor retailers. They cost iro £150 and are available in Autobahn (grey), Black and Flea (rust red). The “Forces” versions are available in Black and Burro (tan) from www.hueys. co.uk.

THREE FOR ALL SEASONS!

I’ve chosen the three pairs of boots here not because they are the cheapest out there but because in my opinion they offer great value for money and between them will have you covered all year round, other than in mountainous areas in the winter; for this you’ll need a more specialist mountain boot that is crampon compatible - and that’s a whole other ballgame!

Now do bear in mind that these boot models fit my particular foot-shape well and may not be so ideal for you but I hope I’ve given you an idea what to look for when you come to buy. When it comes to buying boots go to a specialist and the top outdoor shops will be able to offer a very good service in relation to precise fitting when it comes to the civilian models. If you’re after a dedicated military model then your local tactical store or airsoft shop is the place to go.

Buy right, buy once even if you are “loaded” financially and if you’re usually skint like most airsofters I know (including myself!) then getting it right first time is a bonus!

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Event GRUNTZ

Z T N U GR ANOTHER GLORIOUS DAY IN THE CORP.

GADGE AND MRS. GADGE GET CAUGHT BETWEEN REPLICANTS AND COLONIAL MARINES AS THEY REPORT FROM GUNMAN AIRSOFT’S LATEST LARPSOFT EVENT. EPISODE 1. THE LONG NIGHT

There are certain sci-fi films engrained into the minds of airsofters of a certain age... and two of them happen to be the seminal movies Aliens and Bladerunner. While many younger players probably love these flicks too, well, in the 80s they were essential future fiction!

So how about if you could take on the role of a Colonial Marine or a Nexus Replicant? Fight for Weyland Yutani and the colonies, or act as an agent for the sinister Tyrell Corporation? Well now you can… and to nick a line from Starship Troopers… “would you like to know more?”

In previous issues of Airsoft Action we talked about the blurring line between Live Action Roleplay and Airsoft and “Gruntz”, by EyeLarp, is a perfect example of this sort of event. Mixing airsoft combat with investigation, problem solving and a healthy dose of terror, Gruntz threw a small band of space marines onto a hostile planet. Only knowing they were deployed to protect scientists at a colonial research station, the men

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January 2017

of the Colonial Defence Force Marines, or Gruntz as they are known, got on their dropship docked on the orbiting warship the Dick Cheney and deployed to “Research Station Romeo 14” (better known as Gunman Airsoft’s Tuddenham site) prepared to do their duty.

STATE OF THE ART WEAPONS

While all this is an interesting premise in itself for an airsoft/ Larp game, the actual pre planning that went into Gruntz: Episode 1. The Long Night, was phenomenal. Prior to the event (which sold out extremely quickly) players were briefed on what to expect via the game’s Facebook page and encouraged to create full back stories for their “character”, detailing where they were from and why they had joined the marines etc.

Using this info the organisers created ID cards and dog tags for the players and were able to organise them into pre-arranged squads. The entire plot, however, was kept secret from the marines so as to provide a really dramatic event once they were on the ground with genuine surprises.

So, fully togged out in camo combat fatigues, customised body armour and state of the art weapons, the marines deployed to the research station, eerily lit under alien skies and prepared to contact the Wayland Yutani techies. Setting up a base of operations within one of the husks of the attacked research station and deploying their mobile command vehicle and “GIMP” light strike buggy in front of it, the Gruntz got

Event GRUNTZ

Whatever their role, all the players got fully into it, adopting accents and becoming “another person” for the duration of the event. It’s hard to stay “in character” for a long time If you’re not used to it but the event team had made an excellent job of filling the base with great looking props, corporate Weyland Yutani posters, 80s style gaming consoles (this was a homage to 80s action movies after all) and, most importantly, a series of radio broadcasts and atmospheric music to keep people in the mood. What many players didn’t realise, however, was that a clue to the true nature of what was going on would often come in the form of these broadcasts and military radio chatter. But for the tired Gruntz coming in off patrol, stripping their armour off and grabbing a ration pack it was often just “background noise”.

down to work.

While some squads tried to cordon off the area others found themselves frequently under harassing fire from blackclad humanoids launching hit and run raids on the station. At this point the brave colonials had no idea who they were up against. Were they rebels? Aliens? A hostile star system’s armed forces? The answer became clear when the first kills were made…. The Colonial Defence Forces were being attacked by “Nexus” model synthetic humans created by the Tyrell Corporation. They might look like normal men and women but they were really cold, unfeeling and hard to kill androids… androids looking for spare parts and components to keep themselves alive. Where were these components? Yep, you’ve guessed it, at the research station!

Unlike many airsoft games, all of the “bad guys” were played by crew and marshals, which meant that the pace of the game could be altered to keep the “players” (i.e. the marines) on their toes all weekend. As the Nexus forces were essentially “characters” in the real life film they didn’t have the same motivations as the players... for example getting killed would not mean creating a new character and they were able to take bigger risks to put pressure on the marines.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

NUKE EM FROM ORBIT, IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO BE SURE

Back in the CP we saw Corpsmen treating “wounded” marines. Again, this where we saw the excellence of the Gruntz rules and the dedication of the players shine through. A wounded trooper took a card from a bag which detailed exactly how they had been wounded... It could be a flesh wound, a deep trauma bullet wound or even death! Knowing this, the corpsman would then roleplay the correct triage and treatment.

To give you an idea, here we’re talking really ROLEPLAYING it and perhaps taking 10 minutes to set a broken limb and strap it up, rather than quickly tying a strip of bandage around the “patient’s” wrist and saying “There you go mate, back in!”

Unfortunately my wife and I were unable to stay for the

“THE BRAVE COLONIALS HAD NO IDEA WHO THEY WERE UP AGAINST. WERE THEY REBELS? ALIENS? A HOSTILE STAR SYSTEM’S ARMED FORCES? THE ANSWER BECAME CLEAR WHEN THE FIRST KILLS WERE MADE…. THE COLONIAL DEFENCE FORCES WERE BEING ATTACKED BY “NEXUS” MODEL SYNTHETIC HUMANS CREATED BY THE TYRELL CORPORATION.”

With the game having sold out well in advance I didn’t get to be a Colonial Marine (I’m still a bit gutted about that) but I did get to be part of the crew. To make things fun I agreed with the organisers that the wife and I would be a news reporter team from “Galaxy News”…. First on the scene at the station and eager to get some combat footage to beam across the ‘verse!

So, clad in bright blue tiger stripes and blue flak jackets my wife Sian and I spent as much time as possible trying to get “interviews” with the Gruntz, ask their commanders awkward questions, film military brutality towards Nexus prisoners (the marines claimed he’d repeatedly tripped up and hit the butts of their rifles), argue to be allowed to have our cameras back and generally “get in the way” of the smooth running of the military unit. The (at first) friendly Gruntz were keen to talk to us and send a message back home but got more and more hostile as we filmed them taking casualties and harshly treating prisoners!

And we were run ragged as the Marines sent out patrol after patrol to secure the area, undertook vehicle search and destroy mission and we dived for cover with them as a Nexus “technical” did a drive-by shooting on the camp!

However, it would be a disservice to the guys at Eye Larp to give you a blow by blow account of the events unfolding. There were too many epic firefights, dramatic improvised roleplay moments and special effects to take into account but it would be good to give you an idea of how “Gruntz” works as an airsoft/larp game.

Firstly, as you’d expect with guys playing a military unit, there was a command and squad structure that was adhered to. People were given “roles” within the unit; some guys were well trained riflemen but others the Company Padre, the platoon Corpsman/medic or perhaps a cyborg “smart gunner”.

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55

Badger Tac Tuesday - Friday 12:00 - 18:00 Saturday 10:00 - 17:00 01296-658600 | www.badgertac.com enquiries@badgertac.co.uk

Serving Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and beyond.

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Game Days 1st & 3rd Sunday of each month Private Hire Corporate Events Team Building

Event GRUNTZ

Additional images supplied by Oscar @ www.wyvernlarp.com

--- Incom ing Mess age ----- Origin : RS-228; Wolf 359 --- Messa -ge Date Stamp: 0 --- Messa 7:08.03.1 ge --1.2170 -This is a nS There ha .O.S distress call s been a from rese n explosi our tech on on ou arch station Rom sa r launch eo 14. and poss re dead. Many w pad. Sev ible gun ounded. eral of shots ha Seconda fence. Ple ve been ry ase assis e xplosi heard at t. This st comm-re the perim ons ation is ply from eter unarmed nearby P of Darw .T MC resp in, onse outp here is no --- Messa help us. ost. For ge ends the love ----- Outgo ing Mess age ----- Origin : CDFS D ick Chen --- Messa ey ge Date Stamp: 0 ----- Messa 8:13.03.1 ge --1.2170 -This is th e colonia l strike fr your S.O igate Dic .S. Appro k Chene ximate E tough Ro y acknow TA nine m hours at ledging --- Messa eo, the marines best spe are on th ge ends ed. Hang --eir way!

second day due to family commitments but the experience of just being crew for the main phase of the event was immense.

The attention to detail on the props was fantastic (the female cyborg marine “Panzer”, carrying an MG42-based smart gun on a steady-cam mount was straight out of Aliens) and the roleplaying skill of the players made you feel you’d stepped onto the set of a James Cameron movie.

Gruntz certainly won’t be for everyone but I feel that this sort of event is only going to become bigger and bigger in future as more and more airsofters want something a little more fulfilling than a 30000 rounds a minute death match on a Sunday. But having said that, as before, it requires a lot from

the player as well. If you don’t feel you can be a character for three days, can’t follow your team’s mission etc. and just want to go and shoot things, then it’s certainly not the event for you.

So do you want to be a Colonial Marine? Would you like to know more?

If you do want to know more and join in the adventures of the Colonial Marines then check out Gunman Airsoft / Eye Larp… get moving thought soldiers... Places sell out fast.

Real fast!

“WE WERE RUN RAGGED AS THE MARINES SENT OUT PATROL AFTER PATROL TO SECURE THE AREA, UNDERTOOK VEHICLE SEARCH AND DESTROY MISSION AND WE DIVED FOR COVER WITH THEM AS A NEXUS “TECHNICAL” DID A DRIVE-BY SHOOTING ON THE CAMP!”

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57

Action Air IPSC BRITISH MASTERS

DAWN WILLIAMS, FROM SOUTH WEST PRACTICAL SHOOTERS (SWPS), REPORTS FROM THE ACTION AIR IPSC BRITISH MASTERS LEVEL 3 COMPETITION HOSTED AT BRAVO ONE ON 28TH–30TH OCTOBER 2016.

IPSC BRITISH MASTERS 2016 HAS BEEN YET ANOTHER year where we have seen the Action Air practical shooting discipline grow; not only in the UK but worldwide.

The International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) is fundamental in the growth of all shooting disciplines and recognising all of the different shooting disciplines; including Handgun, Rifle, Shotgun, and Action Air. There are now regional organisations in nearly 100 different countries listed on the IPSC website, with competitions being held world-wide.

The “Action Air” shooting discipline has grown so significantly in recent years that there will be the first ever IPSCsanctioned “Action Air World Championship” held in Hungary in 2017. In order for shooters to qualify for this spectacular event, all potential National Squad members are required to compete in a number of National competitions at varying

“levels” throughout 2016; known lovingly amongst the Action Air shooting community as the “Road to Hungary”.

With it now being November, there are not many National competitions left on the 2016 “Road to Hungary” competition listing, however a “Level 3” competition was held in Birmingham on 28th-30th October.

The Action Air IPSC British Masters Competition took place at the Grange Practical Shooting (GPS) “Bravo One” facility in the centre of Birmingham over the Halloween weekend, where nearly 50 shooters competed from a number of Action Air Shooting Clubs, as well as independent shooters.

The competitors travelled from shooting clubs that are based all over the UK, including Huddersfield, Burnley, Watford, East Barnet, Carlisle, Coventry, High Wycombe, Hereford, Gloucester, and Axminster to take part in this “Level 3” IPSC Action Air Competition; which was fully sanctioned by the United Kingdom Practical Shooting Association (UKPSA).

In order for a competition to be sanctioned by the UKPSA, the shooting club hosting the competition must be registered and approved by the UKPSA and all Range Officers (ROs) involved in the competition must be also be registered and formally qualified. For shooters to compete in a “Level 3” competition, they must be UKPSA Members and must have completed a UKPSA-approved Safety Course.

THE COMPETITION

The competition consisted of 12 courses of fire (stages), spread out across three floors of the 5-storey building. Each floor housed 4 stages, each manned by designated ROs. Shooters were assigned to a Shooting Squad for the duration of the competition and then moved as a Squad to each shooting area to complete each course of fire together, accompanied by an allocated Scorer. The shooters could choose from shooting the competition on either the Saturday or the Sunday. The Range Officers, who were also registered shooters, completed a “pre-shoot” on the Friday.

Under the regulations for a UKPSA-sanctioned competition, there are a variety of stage length requirements to be included 58

January 2017

Action Air IPSC BRITISH MASTERS

in the competition; short, medium, and long stages. The length of a stage is defined by the minimum number of rounds (shots) required to shoot the stage.

The majority of the stages at this “Level 3” competition were short and medium in length, with one stage classified as long.

Although these competitions are run to a strict set of rules to comply with UKPSA/IPSC regulations, the beauty of Action Air shooting (when compared to Live-Fire disciplines) means that there is huge scope for a variety of challenging and fun courses of fire, whilst still ensuring safety is a priority as there isn’t the same requirement for safety angles and backstops between ranges.

The stages for this competition included a variety of shooter starting positions and gun readiness conditions, along with a light-hearted Halloween theme - including one stage where the shooter was required to start bent over a barrel as if “bobbing for apples”.

Other starting conditions were: • Shooting from defined boxes and start lines throughout the year are going to pose some limitations • Shooting from within defined channels regarding additional themed stage layouts and props to use on • Starting from behind pillars specific occasions, as these would be surplus at other times of • Starting seated behind a table the year. To this end, the only Halloween-themed stage was a • Starting facing up-range large pumpkin requiring you to shoot targets through its eyes • Starting facing down-range and falling plates (poppers) from between its teeth. This stage …all of which are an expected part of a UKPSA-sanctioned was great fun to shoot but it was a shame that more stages competition. weren’t given a Halloween touch.

The stages also included some challenges; such as prone Even though this was a “Level 3” competition, clubs shooting, long distance (10m+) targets, and shooting through hosting events such as this shouldn’t shy away from including narrow apertures and windows. more interesting stages for fear of losing UKPSA approval. With To be successful in IPSC shooting, you have to be both this in mind, this competition felt slightly more like a collection fast and accurate. Shooters review each course of fire for 5 of “safe” stages from the “rule book”, rather than adding a minutes prior to their allotted turn, in order to decide the most bit of “Halloween flare” to make it even more interesting. As efficient and accurate way of completing the course of fire in mentioned before, the beauty of Action Air is the opportunity a competitive and safe manner. Each shooter is also allowed to create unique and bespoke stage designs whilst still a solo walkthrough immediately prior to their stage run. Over the weekend it was refreshing to see that the ROs were timing the 5-minute “THE STAGES FOR THIS COMPETITION INCLUDED A VARIETY OF walkthrough, both to ensure that the SHOOTER STARTING POSITIONS AND GUN READINESS CONDITIONS, shooters had the required amount of time and also make sure they didn’t add any ALONG WITH A LIGHT-HEARTED HALLOWEEN THEME – INCLUDING ONE delays to the day’s schedule.

STAGE WHERE THE SHOOTER WAS REQUIRED TO START BENT OVER A As with many things in life, the costs of running 3-day competitions regularly BARREL AS IF ‘BOBBING FOR APPLES’.”

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CYAN, MAGENTA, YELLOW, BLACK

Raccoon MK2 for Airsoft Acion #70

Field uniforms were the backbone of our company for years. Now, with our Patrol Line launched, we’d like to give you a choice of best Mil/LE field and combat type clothing, including some specialized individual camouflage solutions and uniform accessories.

Our idea is combine and supplement the elements of the Patrol Line with other HTX lines – such as Outback Line for inclement weather conditions, Range for shooting practice etc – all lines combine the same design style and features.

Newest generation of the RACCON backpack incorporates our experiences with this model.

Lightweight, yet sturdy pack of 20 Liter capacity is an optimal choice for everyday use, yet it is absolutely enough for day hikes and tactical ops, where a larger pack would be an unnecessary burden.

RACCOON Mk2 is also equipped with one external pocket, similar in size to the main compartment.

It contains a simple organizer for carrying additional items. For heavy loads the simple, webbing hip belt distributes weight properly. The backpack covered with webbing compatible with MOLLE/ PALS system. Shockcord allows attachment of additional equipment like jackets, sleeping mat etc.

Action Air IPSC BRITISH MASTERS

remaining safe and compliant with UKPSA guidelines.

It might be unfair to say that expectations were high for a totally Halloween-themed event and although the stages at this competition were well designed and enjoyable to shoot, the general feedback from a selection of shooters suggested that perhaps more could have been done to add to the themed element of the weekend.

When all is said and done, the Grange Live Gaming team at the Bravo One site worked extremely hard to put on this competition and nothing should be taken away from the effort required to run an event of this size.

Special mention must also be given to the ROs and Scorers, who selflessly gave up their time to help make this event run smoothly. I am sure that you have read before in previous Action Air event reviews that it is regularly the same key representatives of the sport that travel to other clubs and help them make their events a success. As a community, we must continually thank these people for their continued additional effort and support that they provide to multiple clubs that ensures that this sport continues to thrive and grow.

As with all of the Action Air competitions that SWPS attend, the competition experience would not be the same without the level of teamwork and friendship that is demonstrated during the events. Although Action Air is becoming a highly competitive sport, the shooters unite together within the Squads at each competition and it is largely the team support and friendship that makes the atmosphere at competitions so

enjoyable. Getting stuck-in with patching targets and praising each other on a good performance adds to the unity and morale of all involved.

Scoring within IPSC shooting involves a calculation that incorporates the total points scored per stage and the time taken to complete it. Specific software is used to calculate the hit factor versus the time; giving you the resulting score. The top scorer in each division is calculated and then the remaining shooters are scored against the top scorer as a percentage.

All this talk of a “competition” yet I’ve left you hanging on for the actual results from the event!

Open Division – Winners: 1st – Justin Cooper (100% - with 803.4614 points) 2nd – Tim Wyborn (96.25% - with 773.3181 points) 3rd – Matt Wyborn (93.07% - with 747.7566 points) Standard Division – Winners: 1st – Surawoot OB Tansen (100% - with 815.4660 points) 2nd – Craig Snowden (96.79% - with 789.3000 points) 3rd – Paul Wyborn (95.54% - with 779.0858 points) “Bravo One” is a fairly new Airsoft CQB site located in the centre of Birmingham which was opened earlier in 2016. The huge 6-storey 72,000sq ft. warehouse complex was originally used as a furniture manufacturing and showroom unit.

The Bravo One gaming complex not only houses three permanent Action Air ranges which are available for training 5 days a week (Wednesday-Sunday) but also has four dedicated Airsoft Skirmish CQB floors available on Wednesday evening skirmishes and full-day skirmishes on Sundays.

There is an impressive Safe Zone on the Ground Floor, along with an onsite Retail Shop, as well as the Shooter Registration/ Reception area.

Additionally, Bravo One also has runs Airsoft “FilmSim” sessions, Zombie Experiences, LARP (Live Action Role Play), Archery Wars, Sword Training, Nerf Wars, and a RAGE Room.

The facility therefore provides a wide scope of activities for Stag/Hen parties and team building events.

Due to the size and open-plan layout of the Bravo One facility, it lends itself capable of hosting some large Action Air events. Coupled with the fact that the facility already hosts Airsoft Skirmish events, the venue could prove to appear regularly on the UKPSA Competition Calendar and it is a very welcome addition to the existing list of venues and clubs throughout the UK. For more information regarding the facilities on offer at Bravo One can be found on the website: www. grangelivegaming.com

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61

armoury G&G RK74T

FULL METAL TACTICAL THE LONG-AWAITED RK74 MODELS FROM G&G ARE FINALLY HITTING THE UK AND JERRY NOONE GETS HANDS ON ONE OF THE VERY FIRST TO ARRIVE IN THE COUNTRY – BUT HAS THE WAIT HAS BEEN WORTH IT? AS AN ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE FAN of the classic AK in all its wonderful variants I’ve been following the inexorable rise of the “tacticool AK”, which seems to be spreading like wildfire at the moment. I belong to a number of both airsoft and “real-steel” AK groups, many of them in the USA where you can actually own a semi-auto “Klacker” and some of the examples of the super-modernised AK are truly stunning!

If you go to look at websites such as www.krebscustom.

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com, http://rifledynamics.com, or www.coppercustom.com (to mention just three) you’ll see clearly what I mean! And that’s before you get into the sheer mass of companies out there such as Zenit, CAA and FAB Arms who have a vast array of parts to help you turn your trusted AK into a modern warfighter’s wet dream. If you go back through old issues of Airsoft Action, you’ll see that I have created a number of rifles on this theme in airsoft form as at the time I just couldn’t get what I wanted “off the shelf”.

All the parts are there now though, with many of the major “real steel” companies selling directly or indirectly into the airsoft marketplace and more and more licenced replica parts for AK variants are making their way online. For me it’s been wonderful to see numerous airsoft companies releasing modern AKs, so I was really, really pleased to see three models from mighty Taiwanese manufacturer G&G in the flesh when the team and I visited IWA in Germany in March, all with orange flash hiders as they’d come direct from SHOT in Vegas!

As a brand these days, Guay & Guay (G&G) need absolutely no introduction as they appear to be dominating ground for airsoft replicas on a truly global scale and are really beginning to push some of the technical boundaries by introducing clever, more refined airsoft systems each and every year. Wherever I speak to fellow airsofters around the world G&G really have become a very trusted brand, achieving good sales and consequently having the capital to keep exploring new things.

Now G&G have always had a good selection of “AK” models in their range and if you simply look under “RK Series” on their website (www.guay2.com) you’ll see what I’m saying.

Many of these models, like the GK74, have been in their lineup for some considerable time now, so they’re no strangers at all to airsoft AKs but with the latest releases they’ve used all their very latest technology and some sheer design OOMPH! to bring things fully up to date.

armoury G&G RK74T

“MANY OF THESE MODELS, LIKE THE GK74, HAVE BEEN IN THEIR LINE-UP FOR SOME CONSIDERABLE TIME NOW, SO THEY’RE NO STRANGERS AT ALL TO AIRSOFT AKS BUT WITH THE LATEST RELEASES THEY’VE USED ALL THEIR VERY LATEST TECHNOLOGY AND SOME SHEER DESIGN OOMPH! TO BRING THINGS FULLY UP TO DATE.”

THE AK FOR TODAY

The three new models released this year are the RK “CQB”, “E” and “T” variants and although they all feature common technology internally, they are quite different in nature. The CQB has obviously been based on the size of the ever popular AKS 74U and is a short AEG designed for use in tight spaces.

The E variant is more akin to the current AK105 so, to my mind, the most versatile of the family. The T is a full-on AK74 length battle rifle, ideal for those longer engagement distances and for woodland gameplay.

All three variants feature a modern railed top cover and front rail systems of varying lengths; at 12 o’clock there is a continuation of the picatinny rail of the top cover, whilst at 3 and 9 o’clock you have a very attractive KeyMod solution for mounting accessories. On the E and T models at six o’clock you have a combination of picatinny and KeyMod, while the short CQB just has picatinny. Flash hiders on the CQB and E are “sound amp” style, whilst the T has classic AK74; all have a 14mm CCW thread if you want to change them.

In terms of battery storage for the CQB it’s the standard AK situation of tucking a stick under the top cover but the E and T variants have a rather more elegant and unique solution; by turning the gas tube section at the sharp end you can release the top of the rail system up and out and this in turn exposes the battery compartment itself. At first the compartment seems quite small… that is until you realise that there is an internal battery box which lifts free to store an 11.1v Lipo Nunchuck absolutely perfectly. When everything is closed up again the battery all but disappears; top marks for this G&G! A folding and retractable stock is fitted to all three, as is a very comfortable and ergonomic pistol grip and there’s a sling attachment point just forward of this. There are ambidextrous cocking handles which at first seems a little strange but in operation this is very useful as you can hold the action open

whilst adjusting the hop. The hop is the tried and tested “slider” model as found on previous AKs and is quick and easy to adjust and the fire selector works exactly as it does on the real thing, with safe found at the top position, full auto middle and semi at the bottom point.

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armoury G&G RK74T

Once you disconnect the battery it will likely still operate in guns without this technology, as those products will allow the battery to drain completely flat. This means when using a G&G RIF with ETU, your battery must be fully charged or the automatic cut off feature will kick in. This feature is designed to protect your battery as well as the advanced control board inside. The RKs require a higher voltage battery to operate as lower voltage batteries will simply not be recognised by the ETU! The other neat thing about having the ETU is that you can program your RK to fire either full-auto or three round bursts!

To set this up you simply place the selector to semi-auto mode and hold the trigger down for a full ten seconds and the setup is complete. To get back to full-auto you just repeat the process, it really is that simple.

DOWNRANGE

…AND THEN THINGS GET CLEVER!

Internally everything is neat and straightforward with a solid and dependable gearbox, 8mm bearings and a 25,000rpm Hi-torque Short axis motor. So far so good but in the RK74 series you get both a MOSFET and an ETU! The Electronic Trigger Unit (ETU) means faster trigger response, prevents locking during rapid single shot and prevents trigger burns. This new G&G technology will automatically stop the AEG from operating if it detects the battery voltage is too low.

With all this clever stuff worked out, an 11.1V LiPo battery fitted and the 115 BB proprietary MidCap loaded up, it was time to chrono the beast. I’d been sent the RK74T to test and even with the long 433mm inner barrel on this model I was getting a consistent 1.02 Joule/332fps on .20g BBs, which is absolutely perfect for virtually every site in the UK. In terms of accuracy and range the RK is absolutely spot-on too. Switching up to my usual .25 BBs and re-setting the hop, I was easily reaching out to the extent of my 30m range and the BBs were disappearing nicely into the berm, suggesting that they head out a good deal further! At that range, just using the simple iron sights I was easily able to hit a sandbag size target over and again, so all was good.

I am so pleased that G&G have released this range of superb “tacticool AKs” as, over the years that I’ve come to know them, the team at G&G have just gone from strength to strength and in many ways I now have a really good reason to own one of their AEGs. I do like the RK74T a lot but as this has already been earmarked for a project I’m working on with Kelly (watch out for this in the future!) I think I’ll revert to my earlier comment about the E variant being the

“I’D BEEN SENT THE RK74T TO TEST AND EVEN WITH THE LONG 433MM INNER BARREL ON THIS MODEL I WAS GETTING A CONSISTENT 1.02 JOULE/332FPS ON .20G BBS, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT FOR VIRTUALLY EVERY SITE IN THE UK.” most versatile in my mind. That’s the very chap for me and it’s definitely been worth the wait!

Thanks to Charlie and Apple from G&G for arranging the review model for us and please do check out www.guay2. com for regular updates on their superb and ever expanding range! Thanks also to www.zerooneairsoft.com for their help in facilitating the sample.

Zero One currently have the CQB and E models at £281.95 and the T at £289.95 which is just tremendous value for money!

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Site Report COOL UNDER FIRE – PYROMANIA

A I N A M O R Y P LES LEE LIKES NOTHING MORE THAN A BIG BANG, SO WHEN HE WAS INVITED TO AN EVENT AT COOL UNDER FIRE ENTITLED “PYROMANIA”, HOW COULD HE RESIST! WHAT IS IT ABOUT EXPLOSIONS that brings out the goose bumps?

I suppose it’s because it hits the majority of our five senses which doesn’t happen every day, so when it does it makes body parts that can tingle, tingle!

Airsoft Action were invited along to Cool Under Fire’s latest event PYROMANIA and there were plenty of big bangs for your buck!

Cool Under Fire’s original Airsoft site opened its very posh electronic gates to just a few selected skirmishers about ten years ago, with its original roots set in recreating WW2 games and a few private parties. CUF has since flourished into the fast-paced and very reputable site that it is today and many of the original players are still regularly attending. The site was started by Karl Gunn and then James Kirby joined the team shortly after. Colin has been with them for years and looks after the safe zone and takes care of all of the promotions for special events.

Jason Stringer and Gary Humphrey’s joined about two years ago. Jason is the highly skilled site tech and first aider and Gary is one of the lead marshals so all in all, this is one very well oiled and smooth-running machine.

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The site is set, rather uniquely, in the middle of an apple and pear orchard, so it can’t really be called “woodland”.

I think it’s best described as an outdoor and open CQB site where, over the years, structures have evolved from launching pads to landscapes laden with well weathered, all-wood buildings, including a couple of towers where you have to climb “the apples and pears” (sorry but being a Londoner I couldn’t resist that), plus plenty of sandbags, bunkers and bolt holes. There is even an intense, tight-cornered, up close and personal CQB battle zone, creating the perfect outdoor guns blazing environment. In brief, this is very fast paced Airsofting, so if that’s your thing then you should make a road trip. One appealing feature for me is that you won’t see blue tarps or tyres here because it has been carefully designed to “blend in” with the scenic surroundings. One unusual and rather inspiring initiative that I did notice, was that up amongst the higher points of the structures was a series of loudspeakers and lighting which begged the question... “Why?” According to Jason, amongst the many different events are night games where music and/or sound effects are incorporated to add to the atmosphere. This is a stonking good idea which adds to the already heightened atmosphere throughout an area where you need every available sense on the highest of high alerts, otherwise you’ll be leaving for regen. sooner than expected.

There are four zones, which can be played either separately or as one big site game depending on the theme and design of the day in question. This is broken down into a FOB, PoW

Site Report COOL UNDER FIRE – PYROMANIA

“PYROMANIA IS ONE OF CUF’S BUSIEST DAYS OF THE CALENDAR YEAR. SIMPLY PUT, THEY LOVE TO BLOW THINGS UP SO WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE!”

NIA

camp, The Ruins (with a helicopter in the middle) and the Rocket Site. The Ruins is a giant kill house which can give you Airsoft measles, the PoW camp has been designed so that you can sneak around and in which stealth is your biggest asset and last but definitely not least is the Rocket Site, which is a vast area in the middle of a scattering of fruit trees that needs to be defended on all sides as it can be attacked from any direction.

So as always, with the history and battle zone bit aside, let’s get on with the review from the eyes of this first time visitor to the site before I pay testament to the event itself.

Tap in “ME9 0JS” on your sat nav and it will land you right in front of the gated entrance, although I always like to see some kind of signage or even a “clue” that I am actually where I am supposed to be. If, like me, you arrive a little late and the gates are closed (they are manned and open from 08.30-09.30) it may disorientate you because it looks like a modern, private farm entrance and the last thing I wanted was to hear an angry farmer yelling “Get orf moi land!” with his blunderbuss in one hand and a pair of Dobermans in the other!

After a 200 metre hard top roadway drive to the more than adequate parking area next to the safe zone, you will find a large, dry farm building that makes for a great gear stowage and kitting-up area. You will also find heat, battery charging facilities, free tea and coffee and everything else you could comfortably want. Purpose brick-built, clean, male and female toilets are adjacent, along with a shower room if you need it.

The site shop is none other than Platoon Stores, manned by the one and only bearded master of ‘munitions, Pete Everett and his shapely assistant James, who are on site with their larger than life marquee of tactical loveliness for you to purchase your needs and wants. Soft drinks and snacks are also on sale with an “honesty box”, which I thought was a nice touch.

Players aged 11 plus are welcome (accompanied and regulated of course) as are newbies and “enhanced support and encouragement” are part of the deal until they reach novice status, at which point they should be relatively fluent with the rules, regs and ethics of the game. Rental guns are a choice of M4, AK or G36, as are 5,000 included BBs so pretty

much something for everyone. A typical game day can see approx 5060 players attend and more on event days such as today.

After chronographing of all guns, the safety briefing is delivered at around 09.45, looking to kick-off the first of the day’s varied skirmishes at around 10.00. A 3-5 minute walk will lead you to the first game area as the teams head to their respective start points and then its “Game on!”.

Cool Under Fire has a superb reputation for its warmth, welcoming and relaxed ethos but I must say that this is in no way a reflection of a lack of professionalism and strict and well-upheld site policy and protocols, especially when it comes to health and safety, something that was clearly evident to me from the moment I arrived until it was time to leave. The staff clearly enjoy interacting with the players and the hospitality was truly excellent and very, very genuine. The gaming atmosphere was great and the hit-taking was of a very high standard, I don’t recall hearing anyone moaning about non-hit-taking which was a rare but pleasing attribute.

A delicious lunch is included at around 12.30 and which exceeded my expectations, adding to the quality of the day (today was battered sausages and chips) and this leads me nicely into today’s event, Pyromania.

Pyromania is one of CUF’s busiest days of the calendar year.

Simply put, they love to blow things up - so what’s not to love!

Each game is strategically planned so it involves objectiveenhancing explosions, be it using line rockets, bazookas or meticulously wiring up a series of detonations. The day always culminates with one almighty boom!

This sortie was originally Karl’s baby and it’s the one day he goes above and beyond the call of duty, so it’s fair to say it’s his favourite day of the Airsoft year.

People are onsite all day Saturday setting up the site ready for Sunday and Karl spends the few weeks before building www.airsoft-action.online

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READY FO R TH E

u n it 21, Friars Walk, Friar Street, READ I N G, RG1 1 BX i n fo@a2su ppli es.co.u k - 0118 9561411

Site Report COOL UNDER FIRE – PYROMANIA

props and setting up the scenarios leaving no stone unturned and no room for errors. Pyromania is a day to get your adrenaline pumping and the hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention because you never know where that trip line may be, or where the minefield might be underfoot!

Cool Under Fire do have their own formidable home team, The Roughnecks, that comprises about twenty ‘softers.

Described as “a hard hitting bunch of guys” but still very friendly, they play at both the home site or CUF Battleground, a relatively new site more suited to BattleSim style and for the more experienced player.

I managed to catch up with Jason, an integral part of the team and asked him one simple but very important question, “What makes Cool Under Fire better than the rest”, and this is what he had to say: “We are a family. We all have a laugh and look after each other. And if it’s someone’s birthday they get cake …which we blow up as we all sing happy birthday! If you want a fast paced, newbie friendly site then CUF

Skirmish is the place for you.” …and from what I saw and felt, I can’t argue with that.

The team at CUF really do know how to be the perfect hosts, no matter who you are and wherever your skill level or experience lies. Everyone is equal, everyone is valued and from what I saw, everyone has a great time and I can’t say that I’m surprised that a good number of their original players are still on board a decade later.

These guys are truly dedicated to Airsoft no question, as their passion shines through and an abundance of true passion is what makes a good Airsoft site a great Airsoft site. If I had to dig really deep (and this is being really petty), I wouldn’t mind seeing some kind of temporary sign at the entrance on the day for new attendees because, in order to have a great time they have to find the place first. But in fairness, I was late and had I been on time I probably wouldn’t have even noticed, it is merely Address: an observation.

Moonfield Farm I suppose that Doddington because I visit so Kent ME9 0JS many sites this is Phone: 07960 532613 just me being picky but that aside, this Web: www.coolunderfire.co.uk is a great site if you Email: legion@coolunderfire.co.uk like your Airsoft fast, furious and, most importantly, fun!

The miles of smiles spoke volumes to me in terms of enjoyment and the sportsmanship on the day was second to none and, in my opinion, Cool Under Fire skirmish site is for everyone - irrespective of your needs and abilities.

Good job guys!

On a personal note, on behalf of the team at Airsoft Action and the Airsoft family I would like to congratulate Jason and Carla on the birth of their baby boy named Jax. I’m sure Jason has been inundating Mothercare with requests for the latest camo romper suits and is already teaching Jax how to strip down and reassemble an M4!

Les OUT!

Contact Details:

“THE TEAM AT CUF REALLY DO KNOW HOW TO BE THE PERFECT HOSTS, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE AND WHEREVER YOUR SKILL LEVEL OR EXPERIENCE LIES. EVERYONE IS EQUAL, EVERYONE IS VALUED AND FROM WHAT I SAW, EVERYONE HAS A GREAT TIME AND I CAN’T SAY THAT I’M SURPRISED THAT A GOOD NUMBER OF THEIR ORIGINAL PLAYERS ARE STILL ON BOARD A DECADE LATER.”

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Tech Talk GIVE ME SPEED!

GIVE ME

FRENCHIE EXAMINES ONE OF THE MORE CONTENTIOUS TECHNICAL ISSUES IN AIRSOFT; RATE OF FIRE.

SPEED!

WHILE CHEATING AND “HOT” GUNS cause quite a bit of controversy, players are seriously divided when it comes to rate of fire (rof). Some (and I used to be firmly in this camp) regard high rates of fire as utterly unnecessary, others seek it out relentlessly. It is one of those changes which other players view with some concern as, if you are increasing your rate of fire you are clearly out to cause more pain to other players, it’s just not needed is it? One round is as effective as 10 surely? Whilst this is largely true, I’m going to look at the whys and wherefores of fast guns.

I am not going to do a step-by-step guide to increasing rate of fire, rather I’m going to look at why you might do it and how you go about it. If you want a how-to guide, please drop AA a message and let me know.

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Tech Talk GIVE ME SPEED!

Like their real-world counterparts, airsoft guns – and obviously I am referring to AEGs here – are cyclic beasts. That is to say that each round fires represents a completed cycle within the gearbox and increasing the frequency of those cycles results in an increased rate of fire. LIke everything in life (let alone airsoft) there are no free lunches – you cannot simply change one thing, battery voltage for instance and expect everything else to work perfectly. If you are serious about increasing rof you need to adopt a systematic approach.

First, however – why? I do not doubt that there are some sad, benighted souls out there who want maximum rof just to cause pain to other players. They almost certainly have a whole host of other unpleasant characteristics and should be quietly removed from our pastime. So why would a sane person want an increased rate of fire? There are a couple of legitimate reasons and changes of rof can be a corollary of pursuing other aims. The first is trigger response – what the firearms business calls “lock time”. Lock time is the period from pulling the trigger to things going bang – it’s a measure of how long a mechanism takes to achieve its designed end.

It is not a great analogy as AEGs are very mechanical and the chain of activity is much longer. Therefore the period between pulling the trigger on your M4 and a BB exiting the barrel is much longer than for the real thing. I “WHEN THE TRIGGER IS PULLED, A SIMPLE SWITCH IS CLOSED will describe the cycle very briefly for those of ALLOWING CURRENT TO FLOW TO THE MOTOR. THE MOTOR SHAFT you unfamiliar with it: When the trigger is pulled, a simple ROTATES AND TURNS THE BEVEL GEAR. THE BEVEL GEAR TURNS switch is closed allowing current to flow THE SPUR GEAR AND THE SPUR GEAR TURNS THE SECTOR GEAR to the motor. The motor shaft rotates and (YOU’RE SINGING IN YOUR HEAD NOW AREN’T YOU?!).” turns the bevel gear. The bevel gear turns the spur gear and the spur gear turns the sector gear (you’re singing in your head their gun. Often this will be done alongside improved trigger now aren’t you?!). As the sector gear turns pull and travel, improvements to range and consistency and it simultaneously retracts the piston against the mainspring; changes to some, or all of the internal components. In my draws back the tappet plate allowing a BB into the hop experience increased rof for these players is simply a notchamber and cams the auto-cut off lever which will disconnect unwelcome side effect of other changes. the switch limiting the AEG to semi-auto. When the piston Right – how can we do this, assuming you want to? The reaches the rearmost extreme of its travel, is slips off the sector simplest approach is to increase the voltage supplied to the gear and is driven forward by the spring, compressing the air motor. This will cause it to spin faster which in turn causes the which will drive the BB down the barrel. All of this takes time. cycle to happen with increased frequency. Moving from 8.4v Our aim is to both to increase how often this cycle occurs to 9.6v will make things happen a little quicker, often a 7.4v and to shorten how long it takes to complete. The end result LiPo will deliver a slightly higher rof than an 8.4v Nimh, simply will inevitably be an increase in rof, as the cycle will occur more because LiPo batteries deliver power in a different manner. A frequently in any given period of time. Other players may just chunky 11.1v LiPo will whip up the rof a treat but… want increased rate of fire as part of an overall upgrade of You knew that there was a “but” coming didn’t you, it’s not like I didn’t warn you! …simply increasing the voltage is a crude way to do things and more importantly you can well find yourself with a host of new problems as a result. Chief amongst these are increased wear on gearbox components and feed problems. You may well also see increased fouling of the motor as the brushes are forced to work harder. All that said, if you just want to see a bit of a tweak to rof, upping the voltage will get you there, just use it sparingly.

Running most stock guns flat out on an 11.1v Lipo will cause them

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TRG

INTRODUCING THE LATEST INSTALMENT OF THE VALKEN TACTICAL BATTLE MACHINE SERIES

TRG-M & TRG-L

• Updated gear box with new improved gear set, improved trigger and shuttle • Upgraded piston with six metal teeth • Improved barrel mount with C-Clip for improved accuracy • New orescent hi-visibility ip up sights – front and rear • Integrated ring mounts for sling attachments • Airsoft Spec Keymod for attachments

valken.com

Tech Talk GIVE ME SPEED!

to fail sooner rather than later. Firing short bursts on the other up and released by the sector gear. As a technique it further hand will probably be fine despite the increased rof, especially increases rof and decreases “lock time” but it comes at a price. if the motor gets a chance to cool a little between bursts. But With its reduced travel comes a reduction in “swept volume”, what if we want to go all out for speed? the amount of air being compressed and this inevitably leads I suspect that you have worked out that if you are going to lower muzzle velocity. This is fine if you are looking to lower to take this approach a bit of upgrading is in order, unless you that deliberately, not so good if you aren’t. The simple remedy are happy to wait for your gun to grind itself into inactivity and is to fit a more powerful spring to compensate, bearing in mind then deal with it. What I’m going to do is lay out what I would that the greater spring resistance will slightly reduce rof (head do and why and then I’ll explain where you can make further hurting yet?). changes to improve and increase things.

To briefly sumarise; I would fit a high torque motor, 13:1 First, gears. “Normal” gears are generally 18:1 or 19:1 gears with the last three teeth removed from the sector gear, a ratio, in other words the bevel gear rotates 18 times for each decent piston with three teeth removed from the piston-head complete revolution of the sector gear (or each complete cycle end of the rack and something like a M120 spring, aiming for if you prefer). It follows that if you alter that ratio you can about 330-350 fps at the muzzle. I would also check and adjust alter the rate of fire by reducing the number of cycles required the angle of engagement as removing teeth can change this of the bevel gear. Personally I use 13:1 or occasionally 12:1 to the gun’s detriment. In addition, an ASCU or Jefftron trigger ratio gears. Those will make a significant difference to your unit will help with cycle timing although they aren’t absolutely rate of fire on their own and additionally you will struggle necessary. I would also slightly shorten the tappet-plate spring to find any that aren’t made of steel, adding strength to the to increase the force applied to ensure that the air nozzle drive chain. returns as quickly as possible. Generally I would expect that This change comes at a price however, the lower ratio set-up with a good 11.1v LiPo to improve trigger response and increases the work being doing by the gear train, so you might wish to fit an improved motor to cope. I don’t want to over-egg “THERE IS A REAL CHANCE THAT YOU WILL FIND THAT SOME this – most motors will cope fine with MAGAZINES WILL STRUGGLE TO KEEP UP SO BE PREPARED TO TEST lower-ratio gear sets but it is a theoretical consideration. If you marry 13:1 gears with a AND POSSIBLY INVEST IN NEW MAGAZINES – MID-CAPS OFTEN G&P M120 motor, things will get interesting WORK BETTER THAN HICAPS IN THESE SET-UPS.” quickly, however, the motor will suffer in the long-term as it is designed for speed rather than grunt. My personal preference is to use high-torque motors for reasons that I’ll expand upon shortly. give a rof of around 35-40 rounds per second. Whatever the High torque motors will spin much faster than most standard advantages/disadvantages of that, it’ll sound great! motors (35-40K as opposed to 20k rpm) and it’s their much There is a real chance that you will find that some more powerful magnets that allow them to turn heavier loads. magazines will struggle to keep up so be prepared to test and They also, for the same reason, tend to start faster than high possibly invest in new magazines – mid-caps often work better speed motors – counter-intuitive I know but there you go. than hicaps in these set-ups. You also have to remember that Piston – I strongly recommend that you view your piston you are now running a more highly stressed system, there is as a mechanical fuse. They are relatively cheap and easy to no reason it shouldn’t be reliable but everything is running replace, far better therefore to have a piston fail than to have much faster and harder. Failures can occur and if they do they your gear set destroyed if things go a bit squint. I really like the happen faster. Even your choice of BB can matter, some simply red Lonex pistons with their half-steel rack and I have used the feed better than others. More experimentation if you find your Nuprol 14 steel-toothed pistons to great effect. Bear in mind current brand isn’t up the the task.

I am tending to use much heavier springs, so a decent plastic Getting all of this right can be very satisfying, doubly so piston may still work for you. if you can reliably reduce trigger travel so that this awesome Ok, why am I using heavy springs, sometime up to 150 m/s performance is immediately available to you in-game. Next rated? That’s because I am grinding teeth off the sector gear month I’ll take a look at replacement trigger units and how to and piston. This process, known as “short-stroking”, decreases get the best from them. I’ll also consider how you can shorten a the distance the piston has to move between being picked standard trigger travel and why you probably don’t want to!

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International HONG KONG

CONTINUING WITH HIS ROAMING REMIT TO BRING NEWS OF AIRSOFT AROUND THE GLOBE, THIS MONTH BILL THOMAS TAKES YOU TO THE CULTURAL HOME OF OUR GAME AND FINDS OUT A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THE STATE OF PLAY IN HONG KONG FOR THE EX-PAT COMMUNITY!

INTERNATIONAL AIRSOFT:

HONG KONG AH, HONG KONG! I AM 100% certain that if you’ve been in the airsoft world for any length of time then you’ll have ordered at least accessories direct from some of the shops and outlets there; let’s face it the list of companies situated in Mong Kok and the surrounding area reads like a “who’s who” of the airsoft universe!

AsiaAirsoft, EHobbyAsia, Redwolf Airsoft, UNCompany, JKARMY, Den Trinity, WGC and Airsoft Global are all based in this area, along with shops like BANG BANG run by our very good friend the “Airsoft Surgeon” Clarence Lai and Toy Soldier &Workshop run by my old mate Alan K.W. Hsu… the list just goes on and on!

I’ve long wished to visit Hong Kong myself but to date the opportunity has not come up; I pore over my “Lonely Planet” travel guide and plan my “Mong Kok” campaign and one day it will happen and I’d love to get a game in while I was there but how to make that happen?

On a MilSim training course earlier this year I had the great pleasure to meet Tony Gower, an ex-pat airsofter who is lucky enough to live in Hong Kong. He was back in the UK visiting

friends and family and joined the course to better his skills and drills, taking these new airsoft tools back to his team-mates. Of course the conversation came round to the ex-pat airsoft scene in Hong Kong and Tony graciously agreed to tell me a bit more about what goes down there.

AA: Hi Tony! Please can you tell me a little about how airsoft has developed for you in Hong Kong?

Tony: “Airsoft in Hong Kong is big; however it can feel like a fairly closed shop when it comes to trying to get involved in games as a newcomer. Most games are hosted and organised by established groups of players which generally won’t let individual players join in unless you know someone directly affiliated with a group. There was also the language barrier as only a handful of groups were catered to the English-speaking community (the rest are made up of local Hong Kongers and thus communicate mostly in Cantonese). As almost all of us were new to the world of airsoft, the barriers to entry felt quite high. As you can imagine this was pretty frustrating and so we decided to form our own English speaking airsoft group, open to anyone from any background, any skill or experience level. www.airsoft-action.online

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international HONG KONG

“MOST SHOPS IN HK, ON THE OTHER HAND, DON’T KNOW HOW TO GIVE ANY FORM OF CUSTOMER SERVICE AS ALL THEY WANT IS TO MAKE A QUICK SALE AND OFFER LITTLE AFTERSALES SUPPORT WHATSOEVER IF YOU DO RUN INTO AN ISSUE WITH AN ITEM YOU’VE PURCHASED.” This is how XPAT Airsoft was formed.”

AA: Do you have many established sites in Hong Kong itself and if so, could you tell me a little more about them?

Tony: “Hong Kong has many established sites, both outdoor and indoor (CQB) venues, all vary in size and layout. Most outdoor sites can cater for parties of 12 -100 players and although aren’t massive, are large enough to accommodate up to four games simultaneously. When it comes to outdoor games however, do be aware during the summer months it is hot and humid. During that time of year the outdoor games are better suited for the fitter airsoft players, due to intense heat and humidity of Hong Kong’s tropical climate. The indoor venues are all CQB sites with narrow corridors and rooms and populated by barriers and other obstacles to be used as cover.

These are suited for 8-40 players, all with their own virtues and sizes ranging from single floor layouts to three stories. Overall however, Hong Kong is pretty small and has one of the highest property prices in the world and this lack of affordable land prevents massive venues from being built like the ones you might see in North America or Europe for example.”

AA: Do sites and players have any legal restrictions that to contend with?

Tony: “Hong Kong has a legal muzzle energy limit for airsoft guns set at 2 Joules (2J), however, during all our outdoor games we set the limit to 1.6J for all guns (although bolt action sniper rifles are allowed to be up to 1.9J but with a minimum engagement distance of 20 meters). Our indoor limit for all guns is set at 1.3J due to the shorter engagement distances.

We rigorously enforce these rules at every game we host by chronoing everyone’s guns before the game. By doing this we help ensure that our games are safe for everyone attending, as we believe that safety should always be the top priority in airsoft.”

AA: What’s a normal game day like for you?

Tony: “Most indoor games are run in the evening for us, however most venues are open from 10:00AM through to midnight and some will even stay open 24 hours!

“When we host games, we arrive at the venue, greet all our members both regular and new and have a bit of a chat as we get changed into our uniform and gear. We then get to work and start chronoing everyone’s guns to ensure they are all within the set energy limits. Once everyone is ready, we brief the group on the game rules and etiquette so that there are no misunderstandings mid-game. We then explain the next game-mode and proceed to start the game. We get quite a few games in at any given event and more often than not these days, we end the evening by going to the nearest 7-Eleven for a couple of affordable post-game drinks (one of the many great things about Hong Kong is that drinking on the street is perfectly legal!)”

AA: What is a popular style of play in Hong Kong, regular skirmish, MilSim or both?

Tony: “Hong Kong has variety of different airsoft groups, from dedicated MilSim groups, small CQB teams and groups that hold casual skirmish style games. We tend to hold skirmish style games with a range of different game-modes as we find these to be the most fun and feel that this where airsoft really shines

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International HONG KONG

as a game and a sport. These games also allow for people of all skill levels to join-in without a having to deal with a steep learning curve.

“We generally run various game modes throughout each event, such as “Team Deathmatch”, “Deliver the Briefcase”, “Protect the VIP”, “Rush” and “Trouble in Terrorist Town”. We try to make it interesting for all players, bearing in mind we cater for a broad age range, from anywhere as young as 12, through to the oldest member who I believe is 60. This way, we hope everyone has a great experience playing with us.”

AA: Do airsofters in Hong Kong train either as individuals or teams?

Tony: “Some teams train as a unit and play as a unit but mostly people adopt the individual approach. Some groups do offer training for their members which we’ve recently started doing and this does prove very popular, certainly within our group.

Training not only helps improve individual skills and boosts the in-game confidence of players (especially new players) but it’s also an excellent team-bonding experience.”

AA: What’s important to you in relation to loadouts?

Tony: “Regarding load-outs, it does become weatherdependant; the less you carry, the more comfortable you are but it certainly makes you more vulnerable to BBs and going home covered with little red and purple bullseyes. Basic loadout is a pistol, assault rifle or SMG and of course, good eye protection. After that, it is up to the individual.”

AA: I know that you are spoilt for choice in relation to airsoft shops in Hong Kong; do you have particular favourites?

Tony: “Favourite shops, yes, most definitely, we tend to support shops like Krafters Milsim & Tactical, because they offer great service and they are somewhere you can go in and have a friendly chat with the owner. Most shops in HK, on the other hand, don’t know how to give any form of customer service as all they want is to make a quick sale and offer little aftersales support whatsoever if you do run into an issue with an item you’ve purchased. (Bill: That’s okay for me, I’d only be buying parts and accessories anyway.)

AA: Are there particular brands and models of airsoft replica that are important in Hong Kong?

Tony: “Hong Kong players tend to be very fussy on their kit; many guns sold are in the high price bracket. If you are into GBBs for instance, the Taiwanese brands like GHK or KWA are the go-to make. We even have companies based here like Hephaestus that take the basic GHK models and work their custom magic on them. You have to be lucky or well-connected enough to get one as they often sell out before even being released to the general public. At the end of the day, Hong Kong has everything available to suit all budgets and desires, whether you are into AEGs or GBBs.”

AA: Do sites have a rental facility if someone were visiting from overseas?

Tony: “All sites, both indoor and outdoor, carry rental gear.

Hen and Stag parties at airsoft venues are also popular and so these give people the opportunity to try out the sport before falling headlong down the bottomless rabbit hole of custom guns and upgrades!”

AA: If anyone is visiting Hong Kong and is interested in visiting a site for a game day, where should they head for information?

Tony: “First port of call for anyone visiting Hong Kong from abroad that wants to play is to check out the XPAT Airsoft group on Facebook. Drop one of us admins a message and we will guide you through it all and answer any questions you may have regarding the group or airsoft in general. You don’t need to look any further than that, simple! We host games almost every weekend and we always look forward to meeting new players from all backgrounds and levels of experience.”

AA: Many thanks Tony, a pleasure speaking to you and I sincerely hope that one day I will finally get to visit Hong Kong and that our paths will cross again!

www.airsoft-action.online

77

Warriors FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION PARATROOPER

FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION PARATROOPER CENTRAL EUROPE 1980s GARETH “GADGE” HARVEY RETURNS TO EUROPE IN THE 1980S FOR THIS ISSUE, AS HE LOOKS INSIDE THE FEARED AND RESPECTED FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION. Kit & Assistance: Ian Michael Lea THE FRENCH ARMY OF THE COLD WAR years was both well trained and well equipped but kept itself slightly apart from its European brothers in arms in NATO. Having been all but destroyed by the Germans in WWII, the French army was rebuilt in the late 1940s and while the Free French forces of WWII were equipped entirely with British or American combat gear, before long France would began to develop its own national military identity once again.

In the immediate aftermath of WWII most French military activity was dedicated to reclaiming the colonies it had lost to the Axis powers in both Africa and Indochina (territories like Algeria and Vietnam which would be thorns in their sides for decades) but a significant commitment was made to providing a defence against a future Soviet threat in Europe.

France did, however, remain somewhat distant to the overarching NATO unified strategy. While it would fight with NATO, the French Army formed its army corps into reserve units for NATO’s Central Army Group and Northern Army Group, while also supplying a rapid reaction force of five light divisions as a mobile re-enforcement.

DEFENSIVE STRATEGY

The country’s unique stance (being within NATO but not part of its command structure) fitted French post war policy perfectly.

President (and wartime leader of the Free French) Charles de Gaulle had set down a strategy of national strategic autonomy

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Warriors FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION PARATROOPER

series and anti-tank missile systems like “MILAN” to counter heavier opposition.

French tactics at the time were to use their superior mobility to outflank the lumbering soviet forces, rather than be ground down in a meat-grinder head on clash. While this strategy made perfect sense, it was at odds with the West German policy of the time - a policy to not surrender a single foot of German soil to the Soviets.

SOAKED IN BLOOD

Perhaps most famous of all French forces are the feared and renowned French Foreign Legion.

A lot of legend and myth surrounds “The Legion”, one of which being that a man can escape to the legion, take on a new identity and be free of any former crime. While this might have been the case in the 19th century, these days (and in the 1980s) new recruits are checked with Interpol and those wanted for serious crimes, like murder or terrorism, are handed to the authorities. For those with no criminal record or perhaps minor offences, a new life with a new name awaits in the legion.

and a “defensive” posture against the Russians. This strategy allowed France to enjoy all the security privileges and benefits of being a NATO member while retaining total sovereignty and stationing its own army on French soil without outside interference. This autonomy also prevented conscript troop of the French Army being sent overseas on NATO duties (but as we shall see, more elite units were often deployed) without French Government approval.

This largely defensive army became a source of great pride to most French citizens and while defensive in nature, the French had learned the lessons of being outflanked the hard way in WWI and WWII and made sure that the battlegroups in their armies were able to move fast and strike hard. To this end the French developed excellent light tanks, APCs and Helicopters for their well-trained and well-motivated (but largely conscripted) army. These formations were often “armour heavy” and designed to counter the armoured thrusts of a Soviet Tank Army, yet did not feature dedicated “main battle tanks” and, instead, relied on lighter tanks like the AMX

“LIFE IN THE LEGION IS SPARTAN, TRAINING INCREDIBLY HARSH AND IT IS SAID THAT EVERY RECRUIT WILL SOAK HIS OWN SOCKS WITH HIS BLOOD AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE COMPLETING THEIR TRAINING.” 80

January 2017

Warriors FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION PARATROOPER

While Frenchmen cannot join the legion as recruits, many do, pretending to be Belgian, Swiss or French Canadians.

Most recruits, though, come from other European countries and quickly find they are expected to speak French. Life in the legion is Spartan, training incredibly harsh and it is said that every recruit will soak his own socks with his blood at least once before completing their training.

Once within the legion, a Legionnaire will be attached to one of its specialist arms, such as the cavalry units or the airborne forces. Our warrior this month represents a “caporal” (corporal) of the renowned 2REP (2e Régiment étranger de parachutists) parachute formation (known as “les paras”) of the legion deployed for ground operations in North West Europe Trained in air assault, urban warfare, mountain warfare, amphibious warfare, sniping and demolitions and with extensive experience of desert warfare, the Paras of 2REP can truly call themselves “elite” and have been deployed to protect French interests around the world. Many cynics would argue that the French Foreign Legion allows the French to put “French Boots” into a war without the risk of “French Body Bags” coming back but regardless of the political motivation, the legion always acquits itself well in battle, if perhaps overenthusiastically at times.

legion’s elite paras (the regular army paras wear a red beret) worn slanting to the opposite way the Brits and Germans wear them and sporting the gleaming winged sword cap badge of French Airborne Forces.

French Cold War kit is deceptively attractive to the skirmisher and collector. It seems “nothing special” at first glance but its excellent design soon shows it to be a decent choice for a skirmish loadout. What’s more, it’s not too hard to source but you’ll have more luck and get better prices looking at French eBay and learning the terms you want to search for in French.

For certain it’s an easy and fairly cost effective loadout to put together… tracking down a FAMAS could be harder.

LES RANGERS

Our warrior this month wears the practical “F1” combat uniform. The F1 is a lightweight suit based on the earlier “Satin 300” uniform favoured by the legion. While in Algeria and Indo China the legion had issued a “tigerstripe” or “lizard” pattern camo uniform but when in Europe in the 80s, it had reverted to the standard olive green F1 battle dress of the regular army.

The F1 uniform was notable for often being quite slim fitting in the leg and for having two vertical zip fitted map pockets and a Velcro rank tab in the centre (a somewhat standard feature on many uniforms now but forward thinking when it was designed in the 1970s). Facing operation in a cold European winter, our “para” has also equipped himself with a Norwegian army shirt (a popular addition to most NATO soldiers kit) and his feet are protected by a pair of the legion’s famous “les rangers”; based on the WWII US double buckle boots as worn by US rangers and a legion trademark by the 1980s.

Confusingly, the soldier’s webbing system is also known as “F1” and replaced the older heavier TAP and TTA system. The F1 webbing was intended to unify French combat equipment and, like most webbing of the time, is constructed from woven webbing belts and nylon components pouches incorporating fasteners and eyelet and hook clips, similar to the US ALICE system. Going out on a combat patrol, our soldier carries two F1 ammunition pouches, each one carrying three magazines for his 5.56mm bullpup FAMAS assault rifle (for more information on the FAMAS see last month’s issue), an F1 cleaning kit pouch on his right shoulder strap and an F1 medical pouch on the other side. Strapped to his right leg is a carrier for his ANP M51/M53 gasmask (or BBs and sandwiches for the more practical airsofter!) and an M1952 water bottle and pistol holster complete his belt kit, along with an older TAP 50 SMG ammo pouch used as a practical way to carry pyro in game.

Carrying the essentials for a combat patrol such as rations, ammo and his NBC kit is an F1 daysack made of rubberised canvas with an issue waterproof poncho rolled up and strapped to the bottom of it, to serve as either a rain cape or assist in making a basic shelter While well-equipped and ready for combat, two final features mark our “warrior” out as a legionnaire. The first is his French national flag on a brassard and while this would most likely not be worn in combat, it does help identify friend from foe when wearing a more unusual uniform at a cold war battle. Legion formations, however, often wore a coloured scarf under the left arm and through the epaulette to signify which formation they belonged to.

The second signifier is the famous “green beret” of the

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81

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Feature POLITICS IN AIRSOFT

FRENCHIE DONS HIS WIG AND CAPE (NO, HE’S NOT DRESSING UP AS BATMAN) TO VENTURE INTO THE WORLD OF AIRSOFT POLITICS. WILL WE EVER SEE HIM AGAIN…?

AIRSOFT POLITICS POLITICS IN AIRSOFT – really you’re talking about Unicorn poo…

It’s a recurring theme amongst airsofters, they love the game but man, they hate the politics. Now, as a former politics student and part-time pedant, I am always tempted to ask exactly what they mean by “politics” but life is far too short and besides I think I know the answer anyway. What is it therefore that upsets so many of us, driving some out of the sport altogether and turning others into bitter, twisted trolls?

In the spirit of “Hits not Hate” I thought I would sit back in my thinking chair, light my pipe and ruminate on airsoft politics.

First up, I went looking for a definition of politics and found this: “Politics: {ˈpɒlɪtɪks/noun} 1. the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power.

2. activities aimed at improving someone’s status or increasing power within an organization.”

I have chopped out some of the dross from that definition but I think it is fundamentally sound and conforms to what most of us understand by the term. This is why I opened this piece with the sentence that I did, because the first definition is clearly not applicable to what infuriates players; the second however may be more relevant.

Despite the presence of UKARA, UKAPU and others, airsoft in the UK is really not “run” in any meaningful way. There is no organisation giving the pastime direction or setting rules.

It follows, therefore, that there cannot be any meaningful politicking in that respect. There have been periods of it, during the VCRA scare of 2005-2007 I can attest that there was plenty and as is the way of these things it wasn’t always particularly edifying. Mostly it boiled down to money and control which should come as no surprise to anyone, there were fewer problems with representation, at least once things got straightened out.

Since then UKARA especially has largely kept out of the limelight with a couple of exceptions, indeed it has done this so effectively many have questioned exactly what the hell it is doing. I have no intention or desire to go into that here, the key thing to remember about UKARA is that it came into being to deal with the threat posed by the-then Violent Crime Reduction BIll and has continued since as a loose cabal that maintains and administers the player database in the UK. It does not appear to want to represent airsoft in the UK in any particular way. www.airsoft-action.online

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feature POLITICS IN AIRSOFT

Likewise UKAPU, the UK Airsoft Players Union. It exists, it tries very hard to represent players and their interests but the problem is that players just aren’t really that interested…

Again, I have had experience of this from way back when attempting to do the same thing, I think its title was UKAPA, “association” rather than “union”. Reaction was mixed, some were enthusiastic, others unbothered and some were vitriolically opposed before the beast was even born. Not that it was born, as those of us involved got to a point where we looked at the amount of sh*t flying our way we just thought “Why bother? These people just don’t give a damn”.

Now only in the broadest sense is any of that “politics”, although if you want to take a very broad and inclusive view you might argue that it is but I think it is a good example of what people are thinking of when they complain about politics in airsoft. In truth, what is so often referred to as politics is really one of two things; opinions with which you disagree and people telling you what you can or cannot do.

The first of these is a subject so wide that it’s almost futile to address it but I’ll have a go in a bit. The latter is a little easier…

While it is true that there are no overarching rules governing airsoft in the UK, there are no shortage of individual rules and regulations which affect us. The big obvious ones are things like the provisions of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 which lays down in law who can and cannot sell, import and manufacture realistic imitation firearms. Although every retailer in the land will tell you that the world is full of people who either do not understand this, or rather refuse to accept the provisions of the Act, it’s all pretty straightforward and there is little room for argument or discussion. Likewise, the Restriction on Hazardous Substances Regulations - RoSH, which is an issue for retailers and manufacturers more than anyone else. This stuff is all established and the time for politicking over it is now long since past. No, if you want to find something for people to get really vexed about you need to move downwards and outwards.

Sites… The heart and soul of our pastime; without the sites there is nowhere to play, without the players there are no viable sites, it’s a truly symbiotic relationship. Like any enterprise, if sites are to function with any success they need rules otherwise nothing will ever happen and no games will ever be played.

At their root is the dictum “our site, our rules” and I have a whole heap of sympathy for this as realistically it’s the only way to go. There are some real issues that can arise from

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that approach, where a site enforces rules that discriminate against some players - the “home team” always seems to win for instance - but in that case you have to breathe deeply and move on. There are other problems as well, however. The lack of standards means that chrono standards vary as widely as the chronos used on each site, if their chrono is reading over, your gun is hot and that’s the end of that story. You may have to use a particular type of ammo, or (if you want your site to close in a couple of weeks) a particular brand of ammo.

There will almost certainly be a group of players who were there from the beginning of the site and view themselves as somehow “special”, if the site does the same you have a problem.

None of this is politics but that is how it invariably gets portrayed.

“Site X is full of cliques sucking up to the owner!” – politics!

“The owner’s clique always get the advantage!” – politics!

“Player Y is a total bellend but he’s the owner’s friend so he gets away with it!” – politics!

It’s not politics, it is normal human congress. What it is, however, is a problem. It’s not a problem that threatens airsoft as such but it does threaten the viability of individual sites, it does affect the outlook of players and it does drive some of them out of airsoft. It can also engender a sense of grievance which spills over into vitriol on-line. In nearly two decades of being on sites, running games and events I can honestly say that I have never seen an argument on site degenerate into physical assault - most players aren’t that stupid and I know of no sites that would tolerate it. The online phenomenon is pretty much exclusively that - online.

Now I know that I am being pedantic about the definition of politics but that’s just me. I suggested earlier that there were two bases for disillusion and “politics” but it should be obvious that, in fact, there is really only one and it happens where expectations crash into undelivered promises or potential. For politics read “grievance”.

It’s this that makes the problem so potentially intractable, although that really shouldn’t be the case. At the risk of sounding like a motivational meme, where there is a problem there is usually a solution, if those involved are willing to find it. That, in a nutshell, is life. It spirals out of control where the parties to the grievance simply don’t address the issue that separates them and unfortunately that is too easy. Don’t like the way that the site owner runs his site? Have you spoken to him and discussed it? Was he open to your point of view?

Could he do something about it? Did he? If the answer to those is in the negative, enter “politics” and, more often than not, social media. Once grievances find their way there

Feature POLITICS IN AIRSOFT

and God knows, these days that can take just minutes and once there they take on a life of their own completely out of proportion to the original slight, real or imagined. People hurl their toys out of the pram and it all goes south faster than Shackleton.

It’s not politics, it’s people. There are some that can make a crisis out of a drama and can’t live without that excitement.

Others take a more laissez faire approach and ignore what they cannot change. There is an online army that seems to sit poised to jump on whatever “outrage” comes down the pipe next, some of whom just don’t know when to stop.

What can you do about all of this? Truly? Probably not much. Airsofters are, in my experience, a perfectly reasonable cross-section of the society we live in, albeit with a skewed gender balance. So we get the saints and the sinners, the smart and the not quite so bright, the tolerant and the bangers. The best advice I could ever give to those who run sites is to remember that, by and large, your players aren’t your friends, they are your customers first and foremost. Treat the relationship that way and many problems can be avoided but I’m not having a go at sites, please don’t think I am.

There is very little real politics in airsoft, as a community there really isn’t that much opportunity for it. What there is, without doubt, is all the angst, disagreements, opinions and general human behaviour that you’ll find everywhere else. I don’t think that airsoft is exceptional in this matter, most conglomerations of people with shared interests and passions will exhibit just this sort of behaviour and I certainly have no easy solution for it. The best we can hope is that the reasonable majority will always prevail and that those at the edge will either shut up or go and find something else to do with their time. Experience tells me that a few will always be there but they shouldn’t be allowed to colour our view of the great majority of airsofters who don’t actually “politic” very much at all.

www.airsoft-action.online

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Book Review MODERN SNIPERS

MODERN SNIPERS

BY LEIGH NEVILLE THE INTEREST IN SNIPERS NEVER SEEMS TO DIMINISH AND GADGE FINDS A BOOK THAT APPLIES TO AIRSOFT SNIPING, JUST AS MUCH AS THE REAL WORLD ROLE. MODERN SNIPERS ARRIVED AT the Airsoft Action offices with a hefty thump on the doormat. That’s because it’s such a chunky, comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of modern sniping techniques.

Quite often at Airsoft Action we review titles of a general military nature that we feel would interest the “militaryminded” among our readership. In this case though, Modern Snipers is not only a gripping read on contemporary sharpshooting but is also directly applicable to airsoft play and even scenario design.

The role of the sniper is perhaps one of the most mythicised and misunderstood aspects of modern warfare. Far from being a “one shot, one kill” lone gunman, the modern sniper is an intelligence gatherer, a reconnaissance specialist and sometimes a deterrent to enemy action merely by his presence in the area of operations.

In this exhaustive book Neville charts the development of modern sniping and its evolution in the 20th century, before looking into the nature and training of the modern sniper operator. With a steady understanding of the role firmly in place, this book then goes on to expertly dissect sniping operations in various theatres like Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya - both from the point of view of the coalition soldier and also looking at the mind-set of the insurgent sniper.

Battlefield sniping, however, is only part of this book. A substantial amount of the text covers the various roles of the police and counter terrorist sniper and the differences in deployment and “rules of engagement” between police marksmen and their military counterparts.

The final chapters of the book detail the weapons and ammunition selected by the world’s leading sniper teams.

The advantages and disadvantages of various types of ammunition and platform are discussed, including the age old debate of whether a bolt action or a semi-automatic rifle is preferable and with “first hand” experience from former snipers used to back up both sides of the argument.

An excellent colour section shows modern snipers in a variety of theatres, from arid desert to urban hostage rescue and help to highlight the equipment, techniques and weapons used by these skilled operators.

All in all Modern Snipers is an excellent read from Leigh Neville and a great frame of reference for anyone considering “airsoft sniping”. While reading Modern Snipers won’t make you an accurate silent stalker, it will help you get into the mind-set of the world’s best marksmen, help you create and accurate loadout and even , as aforementioned, help site operators with fantasic ideas for featuring snipers in a less traditional “lone gunman” role in their game plans.

As we’ve previously mentioned, it’s a fairly hefty tome and best read slowly in sections, allowing the information on one theatre or technique to sink in before moving on.

While it’s by no means a quick read, it is an informative and interesting one all the same and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in modern military history and especially to those focussed on snipers.

Publisher: Osprey RRP: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-4728-1534-7

www.airsoft-action.online

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kit FIRE DRAGON COOKER

FIRE DRAGON MUL PAUL YELLAND PUTS THE BRITISH ARMY’S REPLACEMENT FOR THE VENERABLE HEXAMINE COOKER THROUGH ITS PACES.

THE FIRE DRAGON MULTI-FUEL COOKER is manufactured by the company BCB and is the NATO approved replacement for the British Army hexamine (or “hexi”) stove. Unlike hexamine, which is toxic, the Fire Dragon cooker uses a safe and clean ethanol-based fuel tablet. I am going to take a look at both types of cooker and compare their features and performance.

The test was carried out in light winds with an air temperature of 6°C and I was timing how long it took each stove to boil 0.25L of water contained inside a 58 pattern mug.

The first obvious difference between the two cookers is their size. The Fire Dragon cooker is slightly smaller compared to the hexi stove but the metal parts of the Fire Dragon feel stronger and less flimsy. Complete with three fuel tablets, the new issue cooker weighs in at just over 200 grams compared to the hexamine stove with stored fuel at 370 grams. The actual

The new issue cooker is smaller than the hexamine stove

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January 2017

multi-fuel cooker is reusable and the refill packs contain six Fire Dragon fuel tablets – unlike the Hexi stove which was issued complete with eight hexamine blocks and disposed of after use.

It was possible to store all eight hexi blocks inside the hexamine stove when folded shut but, because of the size difference, it is only possible to store three Fire Dragon tablets inside the new issue cooker when the sides are folded closed.

Setting up the hexamine stove and the Fire Dragon is pretty much the same; find a level piece of sheltered ground and clear the area underneath and around the cooker of any combustible materials. To use the Fire Dragon cooker, unfold the multi-positional sides and insert the fuel ready for lighting. As an extra feature to the The Fire Dragon cooker set up Fire Dragon cooker, there is a wind shield that clips onto one of the open sides and this does actually make quite a difference to the cooker’s performance. The corners of the wind shield are angled, which allows the ends of the stove to be folded inwards to rest on the shield.

This supports the ends and will prevent the sides Using the hexi stove with mug from collapsing under the weight of a mess tin whilst cooking, a problem that I have encountered many times with the hexamine stove.

Lighting a hexamine block is difficult in anything more than a gentle breeze, so a lighter is an important companion to carry with this older stove. I have spent many hours in less than favourable weather struggling to light a hexi block, however, once lit hexamine is not phased by bad weather and will not blow out easily. The total burn time for a hexi block is just over seven minutes and during its mid-burn phase the flames given off do tend to extend out quite some distance from the stove.

No smoke is given off from burning hexamine, however, the distinct-smelling fumes are poisonous and the fuel should not be stored next to any rations. Also, a black sticky residue is left on the bottom of your cooking pot after using hexamine.

kit FIRE DRAGON COOKER

ULTI-FUEL COOKER Empty the Fire Dragon tablet into the fuel tray

cooking with hexamine and the soot left by the Fire Dragon fuel seemed slightly easier to clean off.

With both cookers, there will always be a degree of variation with the efficiency due to environmental factors including the initial water temperature, air temperature and to what level the cookers are being effected by the wind.

Overall, I found the Fire Dragon fuel to burn longer and the cooker to be of better quality with the flexibility to burn Hexamine and Fire Dragon Fuel multi-fuels. There is the issue of having less fuel tablets for the new stove but you could argue that because each tablet burns longer, you will not need as many. Any new cooker that weighs less, is easier to light, cleaner and more fuel economical has to be a good thing. Of course, I will look back at using hexamine stoves with some fondness due to its character and in my view the hexi stove will always be an iconic piece of British Military kit

The hexi stove had been lit for about five minutes when steam and small occasional bubbles started to appear. At seven minutes, the water was just starting to boil properly with large bubbles when the flame quickly died down and the boiling came to an abrupt end. It all felt somewhat premature and although I now had hot water for a brew, had I wanted to maintain a rolling boil, or heat up a meal from a ration pack to a reasonable temperature, another hexi block would have been needed to finish the job.

The Fire Dragon fuel tablets are individually packed inside a plastic tray which needs to be removed before lighting.

Although not a massive issue, this extra packaging does seem bulky and creates some extra waste that you need to remember to carry away with you. Although solid, the Fire Dragon fuel is quite wet and slippery. In difference to hexamine, lighting the Fire Dragon fuel tablet was very easy. There was no need for a match or lighter, a spark from a fire steel did the trick.

Once ignited, the Fire Dragon fuel tablet soon melted into a liquid and burnt with less of a ferocious flame in comparison to that of the hexamine stove. There is no smoke given off but the new issue fuel still does have a faint odour when burning (but nothing like the nostalgic smell of hexamine). The water inside the 58 pattern mug started to steam and produce Hexamine stove lit with 58 pattern small bubbles after a few minutes. At seven minutes, just as mug holder fitted with the hexamine stove, the water started to boil properly.

However, unlike the hexi stove, the Fire Dragon fuel continued to burn, keeping the water on a rolling boil for another three and a half minutes.

The total burn time for the Fire Dragon fuel was ten and a half minutes – over three minutes longer than the hexamine block.

This extra burn time meant that the water was suitably boiled and any Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) being heated up in the boiling water would have been warmed sufficiently.

Looking on the underside of the 58 pattern mug, there was less blackening The Fire Dragon cooker lit with wind shield fitted then you would get from

Hexamine is poisonous

The Fire Dragon cooker heating up water

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Famous Raids OPERATION SOURCE

OPERATION SOURCE:

SINKING THE TIRPITZ TWO NAVAL LIEUTENANTS WIN THE VC ALTHOUGH PROBABLY NOT EASILY ADAPTED TO AIRSOFT, BILLY WRITES ABOUT ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS RAIDS OF WW2 – JUST BECAUSE IT WAS SO DAMN AUDACIOUS! OUR THREE ARMED SERVICES in the UK have their own fine, unique traditions and characters of which they are justly proud.

When it comes to “Daring Raids” though, you’d normally expect me to be recounting tales of rough, brawny soldiers giving the Jerries a bloody nose. But this time it’s the turn of our oldest service, the Royal Navy and a group of astonishingly brave and hardy souls (Gawd bless ‘em) who decided to redress the balance.

Now I know one or two members of the Royal Navy (fine fellows, very well turned out) and between you and me they are rather sure of themselves, maybe even a little arrogant

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some might say. But “Pride often comes before a fall” as they say and back in the dark, dark days of World War II the RN were about to get a huge shock.

Up until the outbreak of WWII the Royal Navy had, quite literally, ruled the waves, as they had done for hundreds of years. It was their birth right as the capable navy of a tough little island, seafaring nation. But those glory days came to an abrupt and shocking halt when the German Battleship Bismarck came on the scene.

Bismarck was massive, with a water displacement of 42,000 tonnes. Do I know what that actualy means? No, but my goodness it sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Armed to the teeth and quicker than anything else. The Royal Navy had been caught napping in the galley and they were not happy when the Bismarck began sinking everything they got in their crosshairs. The Atlantic Convoys (a vital link between the USA and Russia that supplied the Russians with tanks, bullets, fuel and food to resist the Nazis as they spread further East) were getting hammered as the German Navy and the submarine wolf packs closed in on them. They were no longer in charge of the oceans that surrounded us.

But RN got their act together and on the 27th May 1939 torpedo bombers from HMS Ark Royal hit and jammed Bismarck’s rudders hard right so she couldn’t escape. What followed was a phased attack on the monster ship using submarines, destroyers and bombers over a couple of days to do what President elect Donald J trump said he’s going to do to ISIS i.e. Bomb the #hit out of them! Which sent her to the bottom of the Denmark Straits.

But this is not about the Bismarck, this tale of heroism, this daring raid was carried out by two young Naval Officers against the German Battleship Tirpitz while it was in a Norwegian fjord hiding from the Navy. The Tirpitz set sail from her berth a few months before the Bismarck was sunk but, thankfully, the Allies

Famous Raids OPERATION SOURCE

never had to face the two battle ships working together or there would have been hell to pay.

When to everyone’s surprise the Bismarck was sunk, Hitler, who had been up to that point rejoicing at seeing the Royal Navy fleeing before his mighty Navy, became obsessed with protecting Tirpitz at all costs. Hitler metaphorically “wrapped it in cotton wool”, keeping it as far from harm as he could, which effectively neutered the mighty ship, in fact, all it managed to do after Bismarck’s loss was shell a meteorological station which was repaired 48 hours later. It was then ordered back into hiding, its loss would have been a blow to prestige that Hitler could ill afford.

The Navy had not long before mounted a raid to destroy the docks at St Nazaire, which was one of the few places that could accommodate the vast Tirpitz. With these docks now out of action the Tirpitz was running out of safe havens, which was just what the British wanted. They could now bide their time and concoct a cunning plan to deal with her.

This cunning plan came in the form of a miniature sub hard work, bravery and effort the instruments on the X craft called the “X-craft”. The designer was a gent by the name finally packed up, they were twenty yards from the Tirpitz of Commander Godfrey Herbert who had designed it for the and effectively blind. Edging forward Cameron neared the Admiralty during WWI but it hadn’t got off the drawing board. hull when they snagged the bottom, clanging noisily into the Herbert had persevered though during the intervening years hull. Inside the men froze (like they weren’t already), cursing and it was now good to go.

Cameron quickly released and armed the mines and backed off A miniature sub that could hold 4 men and remain but the game was up. submerged for 23 hours, although in reality the X-craft was He could no longer manoeuvre so he surfaced and was so cramped and claustrophobic that when the men emerged met by a hail of bullets and grenades from a watchful German they were covered in vomit and near crazed by the ordeal. As guard. They had been spotted five minutes earlier by the unbearable as piloting one of these things was, they packed guard, being at first mistaken for a porpoise, who scrambled one hell of a punch; each X-craft bore two crescent-shaped charges with almost two tonnes of explosive, as well as a “HITLER METAPHORICALLY “WRAPPED IT IN COTTON WOOL”, KEEPING IT AS collection of limpet mines that they could attach on opportunity FAR FROM HARM AS HE COULD, WHICH EFFECTIVELY NEUTERED THE MIGHTY targets.

SHIP, IN FACT, ALL IT MANAGED TO DO AFTER BISMARCK’S LOSS WAS SHELL In January 1943, in the A METEOROLOGICAL STATION WHICH WAS REPAIRED 48 HOURS LATER.” enclosed secrecy of Loch Cairbawn in Scotland, six of the X-craft were delivered to the into a launch and when Cameron surfaced waving a white RN team that had been selected to attack the Tirpitz. They jumper to prevent further shooting the men were hauled into familiarised themselves with their new minisubs and carried out the launch and hustled on board. rehearsals on the nearby submarine base in the Loch. As the Unaware of what had happened Lt Godfrey Place and year dragged on they rehearsed and rehearsed what they were his crew were coming up from the opposite side in X-7, the to do, carrying out drills to ensure success of the mission.

Germans may have thought that they had caught the raiders A fresh faced young Lieutenant by the name of Donald and had had a lucky escape. But Place managed to secure the Cameron was to pilot X-6 and Lt Godfrey Place was given massive crescent shaped charges to the hull and make good his charge of X-7. On the night of the 11 Sept 1943 they left escape. You can imagine the tension in the X-7 amongst the Loch Cairbawn submerged beneath the surface being towed 4-man crew, squeezed in like sardines, stinking, bitterly cold by a British submarine, for what was to be a nightmarish 9-day and exhausted when they realised that they had succeeded. journey to the mouth of Altenfjord where the Tirpitz was This must have been followed by the realisation that they then skulking. had to get the hell out of there before the monster charges A plan, as we all know, never (or rarely) survives contact went off! Would they be able to get through the nets so easily with the enemy and this was no exception, especially as the again, when would they be able to surface? How the devil were enemy was the choppy seas. En-route to the mouth of the fjord they going to make the RV with the sub if their instruments two of the subs were lost (what happened to the crews I don’t failed? The crew of X-7 were experiencing similar dramas to know) but as they neared the fjord the four remaining subs were released and made for the mouth. Two more subs ran into difficulties and had to be abandoned, which must have been maddening for the crews who had been training for months and were now literally within spitting distance of the fjord and their prey.

The crews of both X-7 and X-6 by this point were at their limits, soaked, exhausted and numb with cold, much of the electrical kit on board had shorted out and they were having to manually control the mini-sub. As both subs were negotiating their way through the minefields almost blind they heard the noise of an approaching patrol boat just above them, they rose to periscope depth and peered around. By a huge stroke of luck (that only happens in films) the gates to the pen in which Tirpitz was sheltering were opening for the patrol boat and both X-craft snuck in behind it.

Luck however was in short supply from this moment onwards, it was at this point that after all the months of

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Famous Raids OPERATION SOURCE

X-6 and much of the electrics had burned out with the drip, drip of freezing sea water on everything.

As Cameron and his crew were getting the third degree from the furious German sailors above, Place carefully negotiated his way away from the Tirpitz just as one of Cameron’s smaller limpet charges went off right under them.

X-7 was turned upside down and damaged so escape was not an option anymore.

Despite this, Place made a valiant effort to get away from the Tirpitz but was forced to surface. He had made it some way from the ship but X-7 was in trouble and his priority now was the safety of the crew. Once again a white jumper was held aloft to indicate that they were surrendering and the Germans stopped firing at the sub.

Sadly only Place emerged at that moment. He managed to scramble onto a buoy moored in the fjord as the X-7 slowly turned over and sank to the bottom. Miraculously 3 hours later one of the other sailors emerged from the sub having found one of the emergency masks inside and had hidden within the sub.

The captives already on the Tirpitz were joined by Lt Place in a locker room on board to await interrogation.

They exchanged whispered greetings, furtive glances desperate to find out if Place

had been successful, had he managed to attach the huge charges? They didn’t have to wait long before there was an immense explosion, the lights went out and the Tirpitz’s hull was lifted clear of the water.

The ship came crashing back to the water and the men were thrown from their seats and all over the room was wreckage. Miraculously none of the British sailors were killed bearing in mind their proximity to the detonation and the destructive force of the mines. There was a minute of complete silence and then all hell broke loose, the door was wrenched open and they were taken to the upper deck. The Tirpitz was badly damaged but not beyond repair and men were running around like headless chickens. It must have been a dreadful moment for the German sailors but also one that they must have known was inevitable.

The surviving crews of X-6 and X-7 were packaged off to Prisoner of War camps where they all survived the rest of the war. Both Place and Cameron were awarded the Victoria Crosses when they returned to the Blighty. The Tirpitz was not yet out of action though, one of Hitler’s monster killer ships now wrecked and his dream of dominating the high seas in ruins, the Tirpitz was soon to go down as well.

A few months later after Operation Source it was game over, as the heavy Lancaster Bombers of the RAF were sighted over the ocean horizon coming from Great Britain. A total of 29 Tall Boy bombs in their bomb bays were released over the great battleship that was undergoing successful repairs.

There were 3 confirmed direct hits which eventually turned the mighty Tirpitz onto its side.

Between 900 – 1200 German sailors died with the ship.

“LUCK HOWEVER WAS IN SHORT SUPPLY FROM THIS MOMENT ONWARDS, IT WAS AT THIS POINT THAT AFTER ALL THE MONTHS OF HARD WORK, BRAVERY AND EFFORT THE INSTRUMENTS ON THE X CRAFT FINALLY PACKED UP, THEY WERE TWENTY YARDS FROM THE TIRPITZ AND EFFECTIVELY BLIND.”

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AIRSOFT BUG OUT BAG WHEN THE LIVING DEAD COME CALLING, YOU NEED TO HAVE EVERYTHING READY TO GET OUT OF DODGE IN A HURRY – BUT WHAT SHOULD YOU PACK? CALIBRE SHOOTING’S ANDY NIGHTINGALE GIVES US A RUN-DOWN ON HIS APOCALYPTIC BUG OUT BAG.

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January 2017

I SPEND A LOT OF MY TIME, when I’m not on the range, with my head buried deep in some sort of manual, or reading someone’s research and development reports trying to keep up to date with the latest fashions in firearms tactics and training.

Along my journey the one thing that keeps popping up is “apocalyptic” articles and kit.

Looking back through my copies of Airsoft Action I find more than a couple of Post-Apocalyptic/Zombie game reports and although it’s not my thing, I thought I might just have a look into what all the fuss is about.

After researching a few game sites that hold these events and talking to a few players that have been bitten by the dead, er… I mean bug, it dawned on me that this is much bigger than I anticipated. Now I’m not saying that any of these events could, or could not happen for real but our friends across “The Pond” seem to take this sort of disaster for real. The threat of governments losing power, or the economy and electronic stability that we come to rely on so much crashing and generally the World going “off grid”, to some, is a very real threat. So, thinking back to my early days as a young squaddie and packing my kit for a few weeks out in the field, I started to think about what sort of kit and weapons I would need to go “off grid” now that I was in civvies. Not as easy as it looks or sounds. My bug out bag would have to be small and light yet hold all the essentials that I would need to survive and protect myself, if not from the walking dead, defiantly from those that would benefit from anything and/or everything I had. I started to plan my list with everything I possessed and then delete the things that would serve no purpose at all in my survival. The first thing I ditched was money, after all, what are you going to buy when the world is coming to an end? And so on and so on… I took the 4 basic survival rules and planned around them first.

1: Shelter - is a must. You may have to spend time out in the open so you need basic shelter-building skills. If you’re like me and need your comforts (yes, I’m getting old now), you may opt to take shelter with you. Avoid tents like the plague. Tents are hard to get out of if you need to evacuate in a hurry, restrict

CALIBRE Shooting Skills BUG OUT BAGS

your vision and you may not be in a location suitable to pitch one. My choice here was my trusted and faithful hammock.

Light weight, easy to set up, 360 degrees of vision and as comfy as hell.

2: Water- water is the most important as we can only manage to function for a short time before we start to shut down. I didn’t want to carry gallons of H2O so I opted for a means of carrying water, a hydration bladder and a collapsible can. I figured that water is probably the last thing we would run out of but clean water would be in short supply. It might not always be possible to boil water to purify it so I made sure that I had plenty of water purification tablets in my pack.

3: Fire - there are many ways to start a fire so this one is down to you and your personal skills. For me its steel and flint.

I carry a steel and flint on a magnesium block as well as one on my knife and 550 cord bracelet. If you’re not sure how to light fires and how to manage and maintain them, YouTube is a good way to research this.

4: Food - again this depends on your skills. You can either forage for food or pack it with you. Chances are you’re going to be on the go all day so high calorie food will be your best bet. Dry foods that you can hydrate are better than tins when it comes to saving weight. You will also need your cooking Vessels and utensils (but please don’t pack the kitchen sink).

Now I have my 4 survival priorities in check it was now time to plan the rest of my kit.

Personal hygiene is for me my number one priority here. It’s a fact that more soldiers have died from illness (bad hygiene) than by the bullet. A small personal hygiene kit (PHK or wash kit) won’t take much room and will boost moral. A First Aid kit was another item I could not afford to live without. I did think about packing a GPS but if the sticky brown stuff really did hit the fan then there may not be any way to replace batteries or any GPS signal for that matter! So I opted for the humble Map and Compass and I also wear an analog watch that I can use to navigate with. A small survival tin containing some very basic essentials, such as needle and line, fishing hooks, fire starting kit, condom, pencil, wire (to make snares and Traps) mini cylooms etc. As for tools I have chosen a survival knife (not the type Rambo made famous), one that holds some weight to it and will last plus a small axe to make shelter (or decapitate zombies).

Now down to the real business… Protection.

For this I wanted to go as small as I could but keep fire power. I went for an AR platform as this is by far the most common weapon around for its size. The barrel and stock have been shortened and I have done away with any optical sights.

Any sights that use battery power I figured would fail when the battery died and I may not be in a position to replace them, also optics can and do get broken, so I’ve kept to iron sights for simplicity here. Ammunition is going to get depleted and fast, so you will need to take as much as possible (preferably in a cotton bottle top bag to reduce the noise). Spare batteries or gas for your magazines. A small tool kit to keep the gun running will also be an asset to you as well as a single point sling.

Now as most of you know, I’m a massive fan of the handgun but I’ve decided not to carry one in this kit. I want to keep the weight down and figured that if I’m close “AFTER RESEARCHING A enough to the living dead that I have FEW GAME SITES THAT to resort to my handgun (in real world defence, handgun range is too close) HOLD THESE EVENTS I might as well get bitten and join the AND TALKING TO A FEW masses. Knives will serve no purpose PLAYERS THAT HAVE BEEN on the Airsoft skirmish field so I’ve not included one in my kit but you may BITTEN BY THE DEAD, ER… want to carry one of the rubber training I MEAN BUG, IT DAWNED knives, if your site will allow.

ON ME THAT THIS IS Carrying it all was my next concern so I’ve gone for a double carry potion here, MUCH BIGGER THAN I much like the military setup we see; a ANTICIPATED.” survival belt (webbing) and day pack.

In the event of a fire fight or zombie “AFTER RESEARCHING A attack you don’t want to fight your way FEW GAME SITES THAT out carrying your worldly possessions.

HOLD THESE EVENTS Drop the day pack and win the fight with ease. If you survive then you can AND TALKING TO A FEW reclaim your day pack and move on. If PLAYERS THAT HAVE BEEN you get shot and die or bitten then you BITTEN BY THE DEAD, ER… won’t need your day pack any more. So no worries there. Keep all your essential I MEAN BUG, IT DAWNED survival kit and ammo in your belt kit and ON ME THAT THIS IS everything else in your day pack and you can’t go too far wrong.

MUCH BIGGER THAN I There may be other items of kit that ANTICIPATED.” I have not mentioned here that you may find useful and may want to carry.

Although I’m not an apocalypse expert I do recommend you keep the weight and bulk of your kit to a minimum. I spent over 25 years in uniform and I’m still looking for ways to save weight and space.

Just remember this basic rule of life: 3 minutes without air…

3 hours without shelter…

3 days without water…

3 weeks without food…

3 months until hope starts to fade.

Have fun and play safe. www.airsoft-action.online

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Feature MILITARY MUSEUM – KIEV

НАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ МУЗЕЙ ІСТОРІЇ УКРАЇНИ У ДРУГІЙ СВІТОВІЙ ВІЙНІ

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF UKRAINE IN WORLD WAR II ALTHOUGH HE USED TO LIVE THERE, IT WAS ONLY RECENTLY THAT NIGE GOT TO VISIT THIS EXCELLENT MUSEUM IN KIEV. SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING on a cold winter’s day is not the best time to be standing on Dover Docks waiting for a cross-channel ferry. Yeah, OK, I could have been sitting in the car but there is something strangely fascinating about watching how many lorries file out of the belly of one of these those things – where do they put them all?

This was the start of a two-day, pan-European drive through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Poland, then on into Ukraine and to our final destination, Kiev.

I say “our” as I was accompanied by Ross Tucker (and yes, that is Ross from NUPROL) and we were heading off to Kiev to meet our wives, both of whom are Ukrainian and were already in-country, ready to meet us in Kiev.

I used to live in Kiev and had done this journey before but for Ross this was his first time and I was very glad of the company on the two-day trip, plus it meant we would be sharing the driving. We had pre-booked a hotel in Poland so as soon as we’d disembarked in France

it was “head east and put pedal to the metal” where, following a few hours kip and a good breakfast, it was back on the road again.

It’s been over ten years since I last drove this journey and you can certainly see that Poland is making good use of the money it gets from the EU, the new motorway is sublime … and very straight! Crossing into Ukraine was surprisingly quick and eight hours later we arrived in Kiev and set about having a few days to ourselves. One of the things we decided to do was to visit “Motherland” (which is also known as “Brezhnev’s Daughter”), the giant titanium statue that commemorates the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis and the World War II Museum it towers above. I had driven past it hundreds of times but never had got round to visiting before, so I was keen to see what it was like. All I can say is that I wish I had gone sooner, much, much sooner…

THE MUSEUM

I struggled with how to describe the museum without juxtaposing my own thoughts and feelings into the words and so I hope you do not mind that I quote directly from

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Feature MILITARY MUSEUM – KIEV

warmuseum.kiev.ua…

“The main exhibition of the National Museum spreads over 16 halls with total area of 5 thousand square meters. It has more than 17 thousand exhibits that reflect the greatest military conflict of the 20th century – the Second World War and emphasize the contribution of the Ukrainian people in the achievement of the victory over Nazism.

The Ukrainian factor in the exposition wasn’t chosen randomly because about 60% of the Wehrmacht divisions and 50% of the Red Army units were involved in active hostilities in the territory of Ukraine which lasted for 35 months. Every fifth soldier of the Soviet Army was of Ukrainian origin. The Ukrainians who had lived in different states fought against the Nazi-fascist invaders in the ranks of the armies of the AntiHitler Coalition, hundreds of thousands of patriots fought in the ranks of the National Liberation Movement against Nazi and Communist dictatorships for freedom and independence of Ukraine. The Ukrainian irreversible casualties range from 8 to 10 million people.

The exposition tells about the decisive battles on the SovietGerman front, the military operations in Europe and the Far East, the establishment and activity of the Anti-Hitler Coalition.

The distinguishing feature of scientific conception has become the using only of the original exhibits, their combination in the relic images for easy visual and mental perception, the showing of military and historical events and facts through the destiny of ordinary people. Depictions of social and cultural aspects of military life are the essential parts of the exposition.

The museum staffs tend to approach to the presentation of war history with maximum objectivity and completely abandoned the old Soviet clichés and myths.

The museum exposition does not impose visitors any conclusions, it communicates with them as the interlocutors, enables everyone to decide independently according to their own preferences, education and ideology.”

Within those few words are some staggering facts: 20%

of the Soviet Army was Ukrainian… 60% of German and 50% of Soviet army units fought for nearly three years in Ukraine… between 8 and 10 million Ukrainians were killed.

The driveway up to the museum winds its way round the back of the main building to the car park, overlooked by the aforementioned statue – and very impressive it is too, “typically Soviet” some might say. Entry to the museum is across a Parade Ground where, during the summer, different military events and exhibitions are held.

Today though, there were just a couple of rather tired-looking T-Series tanks being swarmed over by groups of school children.

Having paid the entry fee (the equivalent of 30p each plus 90p to take photos) walking into the museum proper is like taking a step back in time. Not because it is “old Soviet”, quite the opposite in fact, it is because the exhibits are presented using artefacts laid out in such a way that makes the conflict very “real”…and very personal.

Photos of soldiers killed placed alongside items they owned.

The wreck of an Ilyushin Il-2, with its wing pointing forlornly skyward bearing photos of those that flew. Huge, panoramic images of burning towns, villages and cities with the detritus of war and personal items scattered in front of them. Hundreds of weapons hanging in groups from the ceiling, gently swaying in the breeze, making you wonder how many had died as the result of each being fired.

As you follow red arrows painted on the floor, marking a route through the exhibition halls, I defy you not be moved

WITHIN THOSE FEW WORDS ARE SOME STAGGERING FACTS: 20% OF THE SOVIET ARMY WAS UKRAINIAN… 60% OF GERMAN AND 50% OF SOVIET ARMY UNITS FOUGHT FOR NEARLY THREE YEARS IN UKRAINE… BETWEEN 8 AND 10 MILLION UKRAINIANS WERE KILLED.” 98

January 2017

Feature MILITARY MUSEUM – KIEV

For more information, visit their website: www.warmuseum.kiev.ua/index_eng.html or Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ warmuseum.kiev.ua/

by what is shown as you are taken past the horrors of Concentration Camps and the torture inmates had to endure.

I saw more than one person swallow hard as they stared at a torn prison shirt hanging from barbed wire in the shadow of a hangman’s noose…

For me, probably the most striking exhibit was in the final hall, down the centre of which was a line of wooden tables on which had been placed the identity documents and individual belongings of those who had been killed. On either side the walls were covered with hundreds, possibly thousands of photos… soldiers, families, workers, children and grandmothers. I have been to many military museums but have to say this single exhibit stopped me in my tracks, it was just so “personal”. Not lines of names engraved in stone that you couldn’t identify with but photos of real people. “Poignant” doesn’t really cut it as a description but it is the only one that I can think of.

We had taken far longer to walk round than we had anticipated and back outside there was no time to fully explore the rest of the 24+ acres the site covers, including a large display of military hardware and the giant bowl that is “The Flame of Glory”. We did, however, spend a few minutes in the “Alley of the Hero Cities”, dwarfed by the (very) Soviet sculptures depicting everything from “The Battle of The Dnieper”, to devoted Home Front workers – all very impressive and all very “Hammer and Sickle”!

We also discovered that, for about £6.00 each, we could have climbed up inside “Motherland”. Maybe next time?

Just as a matter of interest, until recently the museum was known as the “Museum of the Great Patriotic War”, however, when the Ukrainian Parliament outlawed Communist symbology, street names and monuments in April of last year, its name was changed to what it is today.

As I said before, I regret not having visited when I had ample time and chance to do so and have already resolved to go again next time I am in Kiev – and if you ever get the chance to visit this great city, I highly recommend you set a whole day aside to have a look yourself.

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AMAZON EVENTS

Hellingly, East Sussex, BN27 4HL Tel: 0844 2570433 www.amazonoutdoorevents.co.uk

AMBUSH ADVENTURES – CHOBHAM Chobham, Surrey, GU24 8SL Tel: 01252 315225 www.ambushadventures.co.uk

Grimsby, DN31 3JD Tel: 07752 404060 www.arenaairsoft.com

Sawbridgeworth, Herts, CM23 4BJ Tel: 07732 184957 www.awaherts.com

BADLANDS AIRSOFT

Rowlands Castle, Hamps PO9 6DP Tel: 07534 465589 www.badlandsairsoft.co.uk

BARNSLEY AIRSOFT

Shafton, Barnsley, S72 8RE Tel: 07779 236166 www.barnsleypaintball.co.uk

BATTLETEC AIRSOFT

La Couture, Guernsey, GY1 2 Tel: 07781 104068 www.battletec.co.uk

AMBUSH ADVENTURES SOUTHAMPTON

BETTER BATTLES

New Forest National Park, SP5 2DW Tel: 01252 315225 www.ambushadventures.co.uk

Ravenshead, Notts, NG15 9DH Tel: 07967 940043 www.better-battles.com

APOCALYPSE AIRSOFT

BLACKDAGGER AIRSOFT

Sittingbourne, Kent, ME9 7QP Tel: 07872 348 576 www.apocalypseairsoft.com

Grasscroft Wood, Barlow Lees Lane, Dronfield, S18 7UR www.blackdagger-airsoft.co.uk

www.airsoft-action.online

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BLUESTREAK AIRSOFT

Westcott Venture Park, Westcott, Aylesbury, HP18 0XB Tel: 01296 658600 www.bluestreak-airsoft.co.uk

CERBERUS AIRSOFT – THE SANDPIT (DESERT)

Bolton Wood Quarry, Bolton Hall Road Bradford, West Yorkshire BD2 1BQ Tel: 07891 469492 www.cerberusairsoft.co.uk

CONTACT! FIGHT SCHOOL Kelvedon Hatch, Essex, CM14 5 Tel: 01438 368177 www.thefightschool.demon.co.uk

COOL UNDER FIRE BORDERLINE AIRSOFT

51 Green Road, Ballyclare, Co. Antrim Northern Ireland, BT39 9PH Tel: 028 9303 7030 or 07729219341 www.borderlinecombat.com

BRAVO 2-2 AIRSOFT Leisure Lakes, Mere Brow, Southport. PR46JX Tel: 07790 715059 www.bravo22airsoft.com

BRISTOL AIRSOFT Bristol, BS1 2HQ Tel: 07776 288826 www.bristolairsoft.com

CERBERUS AIRSOFT – RIVOCK EDGE Keighley, BD20 0LS Tel: 07891 469492 www.cerberusairsoft.co.uk

CERBERUS AIRSOFT – SHEFFIELD WOODLAND Sheffield, S6 6JE Tel: 07891 469492 www.cerberusairsoft.co.uk

CERBERUS AIRSOFT – THE WORKS (URBAN)

Off Badger Lane, Hipperholme, Halifax, West Yorkshire HX3 8PL Tel: 07891 469492 www.cerberusairsoft.co.uk

BRIT-TAC AIRSOFT Sheffield, S2 5TR Tel: 07795 631331 www.brittacairsoft.com

CHESTERFIELD IMPERIAL AIRSOFT

Brimington, Chesterfield, S43 1DQ www.cia-airsoft.co.uk

Doddington, Kent, ME9 0JS Tel: 07960 532613 www.coolunderfire.co.uk

CORNWALLS ELITE AIRSOFT

Truro, Cornwall, TR2. Tel: 07863 240153 www.cornwallseliteairsoft.co.uk

COTSWOLD AIRSOFT

CLOSE ACTION AIRSOFT Corby, NN17 3BB Tel: 07740 165787 www.close-action.co.uk

BUSH VALLEY AIRSOFT

Runham Woods, Lenham ME17 1NQ Tel: 07786 448608 Email: bushvalairsoft@gmail.com

COMBAT ACTION GAMES

Combat Street, Felthorpe, Norwich, Norfolk, NR10 4DR. Tel: 07748 023832 www.facebook.com/combatactiongames

C3 TACTICAL

Longhope, Gloucestershire, GL17 0PH Tel: 07597 938011 www.c3tactical.co.uk

CERBERUS AIRSOFT – THE OUTPOST (WOODLAND) HPC, York Road, Flaxby, Harrogate, North Yorkshire HG5 0XJ Tel: 07891 469492 www.cerberusairsoft.co.uk

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January 2017

DOG TAG AIRSOFT

Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 4SE TEL 01293 852 314 www.holmbushpaintball.co.uk/airsoft

ELITE ACTION GAMES – WORTHING

Worthing, BN13 Tel: 01784 433023 www.eliteactiongames.com

ELITE BATTLEZONE

CUMBRIA AIRSOFT

EXPERIENCE AIRSOFT

Dumfries, DG12 cumbria.airsoft@virgin.net www.cumbria-airsoft.com

Swindon, Wiltshire, SN5 0AN Tel: 01380 728982 www.experienceairsoft.co.uk

DANGER CLOSE AIRSOFT

FIREFIGHT COMBAT SIMULATIONS

Ellough Lark Raceway, Benacre Road, Ellough, Norfolk . Tel: 07455 906132

Bexley, Greater London, DA5 1NX Tel: 07968 448475 www.elitebattlezone.co.uk

Lewisham, SE13 5SU Tel: 07973 240177 www.firefight.co.uk

DARKWATER AIRSOFT LTD.

Mobile: 07947 558433 www.darkwaterairsoft.co.uk Email: darwaterairsofthythe@gmail.com DARKWATER AFTER DARK C.Q.B, (Battlezone Building), Britannia Lane, Kingsnorth, Ashford, TN23 3NA facebook.com/afterdarkcqb DARKWATER SITE, Dering Wood, Church Lane, Shadoxhurst, Ashford.

TN26 1LZ facebook.com/darkwaterairsoftdarkwater

FIFE WARGAMES

St Andrews, KY10 3XL info@fifewargames.co.uk www.fifewargames.com

FINMERE AIRSOFT Buckingham, MK18 4JT Tel: 07976 184897 www.finmereairsoft.com

COMBAT AIRSOFT

Just off the A11 outside Thetford Norfolk follow signs for Combat Paintball Tel: 07703 045849 www.combatairsoftgames.co.uk

CERBERUS AIRSOFT – THE COMPLEX Horsforth, Leeds LS18 4RP Tel: 07891 469492 www.cerberusairsoft.co.uk

Caerwent Training Area, South Wales, NP26 5XL Tel: 07921 336360 www.dragonvalley.co.uk

Bourton Woods, On the B4479, Blockley Near Bourton-on-the-hill www.cotswoldairsoft.co.uk Tel: 07724629140

BUNKER 51

Charlton, SE7 8NJ Tel: 0870 7549653 www.wolfarmouries.co.uk

DRAGON VALLEY AIRSOFT

COMBAT SOUTH URBAN Portsmouth, PO6 3LS Tel: 02392 655636 www.combatsouth.co.uk

COMBAT SOUTH WOODLAND

Fareham, PO17 5ND Tel: 02392 655636 www.combatsouth.co.uk

DELTA TEAM 3

Skelmersdale, Lancs WN8 8UT Tel: 07986 053076 www.deltateam3.co.uk

FIREBALL SQUADRON Sutton Coldfield, B75 5SA Tel: 07582 684533 www.fireballsquadron.com

DOGS OF WAR

FIRST & ONLY: ANZIO CAMP

DRAGON’S LAIR

FIRST & ONLY: BUNKER WOOD

Houston, Renfrewshire, PA6 7BP Tel: 07853 195290 www.dow-airsoft.co.uk

Brentwood, Essex, CM15 0LA Tel: 07703 530189 www.dragonslairairsoft.co.uk

Leek, ST13 8 Tel: 0161 727 8863 www.firstandonlyairsoft.com

Kidderminster, Worcs, DY11 5SA Tel: 0161 727 8863 www.firstandonlyairsoft.com

SITE DIRECTORY FIND SOMEWHERE TO BE THIS WEEKEND…

FIRST & ONLY: KHE SANH

WOODS

Otley, West Yorkshire LS21 2NA Tel: 0161 727 8863 www.firstandonlyairsoft.com

FIRST & ONLY: MANCHESTER

WOODLAND

Bolton, BL7 9TS Tel: 0161 727 8863 www.firstandonlyairsoft.com

FIRST & ONLY: THE HIVE

Middleton, Manchester, M24 1AZ Tel: 0161 727 8863

FIRST & ONLY: THE ARMOURY

GASS AIRSOFT – PENN Penn Bottom, Bucks, HP10 Tel: 07907 788970 www.gassairsoft.co.uk

GASS AIRSOFT – PIDDINGTON Piddington, Oxfordshire, OX25 1 Tel: 07907 788970 www.gassairsoft.co.uk

GRANGE FARM AIRSOFT Leicester, LE9 9FP www.gingerliberationfront.com

Co. Armagh, BT60 1NE Tel: 07772 919974 www.greenzonecombat.com

FIRST & ONLY: THE ACADEMY

GUN HO AIRSOFT

FIRST & ONLY: THE ASYLUM Kidderminster, DY10 3PT Tel: 0161 727 8863

FIRST & ONLY: THE OUTPOST Kidderminster, DY11 5SA Tel: 0161 727 8863

FIRST & ONLY: SLEEPY HOLLOW Bridgnorth, Shropshire, WV16 5LS Tel: 0161 727 8863

Guisborough, TS7 0PG Tel: 07525 435696 www.gunhoairsoft.co.uk

GUNMAN AIRSOFT – CAMBRIDGE

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP28 Tel: 07854 277264 www.gunmanairsoft.co.uk

GUNMAN AIRSOFT – MIDLANDS

RAF Honiley/The Grange Frogmore Grange, Frog Lane, Balsall Common, West Mids CV7 7FP Tel: 01676 532 384 info@suspensionofdisbelief.co.uk www.shop. suspensionofdisbelief.co.uk

GROUND ZERO WOODLAND Ringwood, Hampshire, BH24 2DF www.groundzerowoodland.com

FREE FIRE ZONE

Farcet, Peterborough, PE7 3DH Tel: 01733 247171 www.freefirezone.co.uk

FRV AIRSOFT

Annacloy, Downpatrick, BT30 8JJ Tel: 07730 586926 www.frvairsoft.com

GUNMAN AIRSOFT– NORWICH Norwich, Norfolk, NR10 Tel: 07854 277264 www.gunmanairsoft.co.uk

HILTON PARK AIRSOFT Wolverhampton, WV10 7HU Tel: 08000 354490 www.paintballuk.com

HOMELAND TACTICAL AIRSOFT Spanby, Lincs, NG34 0AT Tel: 07971 560249 facebook.com/HomelandTacticalAirsoft

FULL METAL AIRSOFT

Cilyrychen Quarry, Llandybie, Ammanford, Camarthenshire, SA18 3JG Tel: 01269 850404 www.fullmetalairsoft.co.uk

MILITARY OUTDOOR ADVENTURES

LAND WARRIOR AIRSOFT

MILSIM UK

LAC SITE 1

NCIS AIRSOFT

LAC SITE 2

NOMAD AIRSOFT

LAC SITE 3

NORTHERN ALLIANCE AIRSOFT

LAC SITE 5

NORTHFLEET CQB

Near Shorwell, Isle of Wight, PO30 Tel: 07964 751047 www.islandrecon.co.uk

Gorebridge, Midlothian, EH23 4LG Tel: 0131 654 2452 www.airsoftedinburgh.co.uk

Gainsborough, North Lincs, DN21 4JH Tel: 07775 877057 www.lincolnshireairsoftclub.co.uk

Wrightington, WN6 9PL Tel: 01942 514724 www.militaryoutdooradventure.co.uk

Checkley, Staffordshire, ST10 4NS Tel: 07523 916607 www.milsimuk.co.uk

Edinburgh, EH14 4 nick@ncis-airsoft.co.uk www.ncis-airsoft.co.uk

GREENZONE COMBAT

Wrexham, Denbighshire, LL13 9RG Tel: 0161 727 8863

Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV32 6QF Tel: 0161 727 8863

ISLAND RECON AIRSOFT COMBAT

HUMBER AIRSOFT

North Lincolnshire, DN21 www.humberairsoft.co.uk Tel: 07792 680297

Gainsborough, North Lincs, DN21 4JH Tel: 07775 877057 www.lincolnshireairsoftclub.co.uk

Saxillby, LN1 2JW Tel: 07775 877057 www.lincolnshireairsoftclub.co.uk

Kirton Rd, North Lincs, DN16 www.lincolnshireairsoftclub.co.uk

LINDSEY AIRSOFT

Manby, Lincolnshire, LN11 8HE Tel: 07955 487983 www.lindsey-airsoft.co.uk

Fenwick, Ayrshire, KA3 6AY Tel: 07904 998250 www.nomadairsoft.com

Thirsk, North Yorkshire, YO7 3LQ Tel: 01845 565465 www.northernallianceairsoft.co.uk

Northfleet, Kent, DA11 9AA Tel: 07968 448475 www.elitebattlezone.co.uk

NSC AIRSOFT

Hetton, Sunderland, DH5 0 Tel: 07983 333521 www.nscairsoft.co.uk

MATLOCK COMBAT GAMES

NTAC

MAW

OBAN AIRSOFT – ILL ARGYLL

MIA

OP-TACTICAL UK – TEAN-OPS

MIDWALES AIRSOFT

OVER THE TOP AIRSOFT CLUB

Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 5FW Tel: 07974 507166 www.matlockcombatgames.com

Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, LE14 Tel: 07793 404346 1midaw@gmail.com

Cornwall, EX23 9JL Tel: 01288 331748 www.airsoftsouthwest.co.uk

Abbey Cwm-hir, Midwales, LD1 6PG Tel: 07497 480243 www.facebook.com/Midwales-airsoft

Durham, DL4 2ER Tel: 01642 281220 www.ntac.co.uk

Argyll and Bute, PA37 1 Tel: 07967 710185 www.argyllsurplus.com

Tean, Staffordshire, ST10 4JT Tel: 07964 990831 www.op-tac.co.uk

Anglesey, LL71 www.ottairsoft.co.uk Tel: 07731 744471

www.airsoft-action.online

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SITE DIRECTORY FIND SOMEWHERE TO BE THIS WEEKEND…

PATHFINDER GROUP AIRSOFT MILITARY SIMULATION Former RAF Camp Sopley/Merryfield Park, Hants, BH23 Tel: 02380 899369

PHOENIX AIRSOFT

Welbeck Airsoft, Academy, Budby Road, Notts NG20 9JX Tel: 07956 587213/01623 812483 www.phoenix-airsoft.co.uk

PLATOON 1HQ

Rochester, Kent, ME1 1 HQ Tel: 01634 829063 www.ptt-1hq.co.uk

PLAYERS OF WAR

High Bonnybridge, FK1 3AD Tel: 07767 203979 www.playersofwar.co.uk

PREDATOR COMBAT GAMES Ballynahinch, BT24 8NF Tel: 02897565651 / 07825169631 www.predatorcombat.com

RAVEN’S NEST

Suffolk, IP8 4 Tel: 01473 831563 www.ravensairsoft.co.uk

SECTION 8 AIRSOFT

TA EVENTS

Hemel Hemstead, Herts, HP2 7QB Tel: 07894 059794 www.ta-events.co.uk

TORRENT WARFARE

Shotts, North Lanarkshire, ML7 5AB Tel: 07974 026517 www.s8airsoft.com

SG1 COMBAT GAMES

TACTICAL WALES AIRSOFT Reynoldston, Swansea SA3 1AS Tel: 01792 473336 www.tacticalwales.co.uk

TROJAN AIRSOFT

Co. Londonderry, BT45 8NA Tel: 07713 273102 www.sg1combatgames.co.uk

SKIRMISH AIRSOFT BILLERICAY

TACTICAL WARFARE AIRSOFT

TROJAN AIRSOFT – OLYMPUS CQB

Billericay, Essex, CM11 2TX Tel: 01277 657777 www.airsoft-billericay.co.uk

SKIRMISH EXETER Exeter, Devon, EX4 5 Tel: 01548 580025 www.airsoftexeter.co.uk

SOUTHDOWN AIRSOFT

Petworth, West Sussex, GU28 0LR Tel: 07766 770830 www.southdownairsoft.com

SPEC OPS AIRSOFT – BLOXWORTH

Wareham, Dorset, BH20 7EU Tel: 07984 656947 www.specopsairsoft.co.uk

Warlingham, Surrey, CR6 9PL Tel: 020 8665 1299 www.tacticalwarfare.co.uk

Wigton, Cumbria CA7 3SZ Tel: 01900 85645 www.airsoftcumbria.co.uk

SPEC OPS AIRSOFT– THE ROCK Portland, Dorset, DT5 2EG Tel: 07984 656947 www.specopsairsoft.co.uk

Macclesfield, SK10 4SZ Tel: 07428 024874 www.trojan-airsoft.com

Weir Mill, Viaduct Street, Chestergate, Stockport, Cheshire, SK5 7JP Tel: 07428 024874 www.trojan-airsoft.com

TECH BRIGADE

Newgate Street, Hertfordshire.

SG13 8NH Tel: 07841 713356 www.techbrigade.org

UCAP AIRSOFT

Portsmouth, Hants, PO17 6AR Tel: 07590 818881 www.ucap.co.uk

TASK FORCE SKIRMISH Cowbridge, S Glamorgan, CF71 Tel: 02920 593900 www.taskforcepaintball.co.uk

UCAP GREEN OPS

Linch, West Sussex, GU30 7 Tel: 07590 818881 www.ucap.co.uk

THE BUNKER

Aberystwyth www.aberairsoft.co.uk Tel: 07841 462806

THE DEPOT RAW WAR AIRSOFT CUMBRIA

Co Tyrone, BT71 4DY Tel: 07922 377131 Facebook: search ‘Torrent Warfare’

Glasgow, G45 9SB Tel: 0161 727 8863 www.thedepotglasgow.com

UCAP SANDPIT

Bean, Kent, DA2 8 Tel: 07590 818881 www.ucap.co.uk

ULTIMATE WARGAMES – FAWKHAM Fawkham, Kent, DA3 8NY Tel: 01268 796130 www.ultimatewargames.co.uk

THE DESERTERS AIRSOFT RED1AIRSOFT

Chislehurst, Bromley BR7 6SD Tel: 07956 522691/01727846069 www.red1airsoft.co.uk

RED1AIRSOFT CQB

Red1 CQB. Kings Langley, WD4 8RN Tel: 07956 522691/01727846069 www.red1airsoft.co.uk

RIFT AIRSOFT COM’S SITE 3 Chipping Warden, OX17 1LZ Tel: 07751 586781 www.riftairsoft.com

RIFT AIRSOFT (COTTENHAM) Cambridge, CB24 8RL Tel: 07751 586781 www.riftairsoft.com

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January 2017

STIRLING AIRSOFT

Coventry, CV3 6NX Tel: 07831 429407 www.stirlingairsoft.com

STORMFORCE AIRSOFT

Rugeley, Staffordshire, WS15 4LD Tel: 07515 937633 www.stormforcepaintball.co.uk

SUSSEX AIRSOFT

Redford, DD11 Tel: 07751 878175 www.thedeserters.co.uk

THE EX SITE

Mold, CH7 4 Tel:07840 001975 www.theexsitewales.co.uk

THE WARGAMES CENTRE

Slinfold, RH12 Tel: 020 8150 9284 www.sussexairsoft.co.uk

Lundholm Road, Stevenston, Ayrshire, KA20 3LN www.thewargamescentre.com wargamescentre@gmail.com

S.W.A.T. AIRSOFT

THUNDER PARK AIRSOFT

Boathouse lane, South Wirral, Cheshire, CH64 3TB www.swatairsoft.eu Tel: 07703 177756

Luxulyan, Bodmin, Cornwall, PL305FA Tel: 07751808055 www.thunderparkpaintball.co.uk Food & drinks available on site.

ULTIMATE WARGAMES – LIMPSFIELD Oxted, Surrey, RH8 0RH www.ultimatewargames.co.uk

URBAN6AIRSOFT – ZONE 13 Stone, Staffordshire ST15 0QN Tel: 07432 291729 www.urban6airsoft.com

URBAN6AIRSOFT – THE BLOCK

Wood Street, Burton-Upon-Trent, Staffordshire, DE14 3AB www.urban6airsoft.com

URBAN ASSAULT

Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, PE26 1 Tel: 01733 247171 www.urbanassault.org.uk

SITE DIRECTORY FIND SOMEWHERE TO BE THIS WEEKEND…

VIKING AIRSOFT

Welwyn, Hertfordshire, AL6 0UN www.vikingairsoft.co.uk

WARMINSTER AIRSOFT

Warminster, BA12 7RZ www.warminsterairsoft.co.uk

XSITE AIRSOFT OUTPOST Dunstable, LU6 2EE Tel: 01494 881430 www.xsiteairsoft.co.uk

XSITE AIRSOFT – LANE END

PRACTICAL PISTOL DIRECTORY AIPSC

The Grange, Frog Lane, Balsall Common, West Midlands, CV7 7FP Tel: 01676 532384 www.aipsc.co.uk Facebook: A.I.P.S.C info@suspensionofdisbelief.co.uk.

Every Monday night 7pm– 9pm (except bank holidays). £5 or £10 with pistol and shooting rig hire. UKPSA-qualified coaches. UKPSA-qualified Range Officers.

COBRA ONE ZERO AIRSOFT Unit 9 Imperial Buisness Centre Mortimer Road, Hereford, HR4 9SP www.cobraonezero.co.uk Facebook : cobra one zero Airsoft

High Wycombe, HP14 3NP Tel: 01494 881430

DOUBLE TAP PSC

Email nige@airsoft-action.co.uk to add or change a site listing

StrikeForce CQB, Morelands Trading Estate, Bristol Road, Gloucester GL1 5RZ Facebook: www.facebook.com/ Double-Tap-Practical-Shooting-Club979585958732937/?ref=hl doubletappsc@gmail.com

HALO MILL

The Penthouse, Colne Valley Business Park, Manchester Road, Linthwaite, Huddersfield HD7 5QG Tel: 01484 840554 www.halomill.com

NORTHERN PRACTICAL PISTOL CLUB (NPPC)

Tanner Street, Burnley, Lancashire BB11 1NA Tel: 07816 992417 www.northernpracticalpistol.co.uk 4 indoor ranges

SOUTH WEST PRACTICAL SHOOTERS (SWPS)

Action Air IPSC Club Based at The Tunnel Target Sports Centre near Charmouth The Tunnel, Axminster Road, Charmouth, Dorset DT6 6BY Contact: SWPSClub@Outlook.com

WETHERSFIELD AIRSOFT TARGET SHOOTING CLUB (WAT SIC)

Wethersfield Village Hall, Braintree Rd (B1053), Wethersfield, Braintree CM7 4EB. https://www.facebook.com/WATSiC/ Open Thursday & Friday evenings.

Set-up from 6:30pm.

Club shooting commences by 7:30pm.

Pack-up starts at 9:30pm if you can stay to help.

Contact via FB or 07939557029.

Indoors.

Club offers Action Air plus 2 & 3 Gun training and events.

XSITE PRACTICAL SHOOTING Fryers Farm Lane, High Wycombe, Bucks HP14 3NP Tel: 01494 881430

WATFORD PRACTICAL PISTOL CLUB WatfordPPC@gmail.com

www.airsoft-action.online

105

DEALER LISTINGS

ADVERTISERS INDEX Land Warrior Airsoft

Inside Front Cover + 3

Airsoft Zone

7 + Inside Back Cover

JD Airsoft NUPROL iWholesales ActionSportGames Fire Support

19 + 64 23 28 + 29 36

FubarBundy

44 52 + 82

BadgerTac

56

Helikon-Tex

60

A2 Supplies

68

Valken Airsoft

72

Pro Airsoft Supplies

74

ASPUK

86

Platoon Stores

92

Silvermans

92

Crawley Surplus Store

96

Dragon Valley Airsoft

96

Military Outdoor

96

Armex Members Club Military 1st

2014

15

TacTree Viper Tactical

106

9 + 48 + 78

105 Outside Back Cover